Old Guard
by LeBiff
Summary: It is a year since the Khitomer Accords were signed, an uneasy peace exists between the Federation and Klingon Empire, hidden factions plotting to destroy it. Before the next generation can begin, the last of the old guard must be swept away.
1. Chapter 1

_**Legal Bit**_

I don't own the rights to Star Trek and I don't pretend otherwise. All of the characters in this story, except for Azetbur are my own creation – I think Sulu gets mentioned as well, and maybe Picard, but neither appear, so they don't count.

This story uses some of the same characters as my Endeavour NCC-194 stories but does not belong to the same timeline/universe.

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**Chapter One**

Mister Sheldon Harrow of the Federation Diplomatic Corps was directed to a large view port built into the side of the starbase's gently curving hull by the young yeoman Admiral McCaffrey had assigned to assist him. He had professed an interest in seeing the arrival of the vessel that was to convey him on his long journey into Klingon space, and Yeoman Hope, being eager to please, had raced him up through the decks of the mammoth starbase to the upper starboard observation gallery, so that he might have the best possible view. Harrow was not an old man, and he kept himself in reasonably good condition, but even so he found himself hot and breathing deeply following the struggle to keep up with Hope's youthful energetic pace.

There was nothing to be seen out of the view port; nothing that Harrow had not seen before, at any rate. Out of the corner of one eye he could make out the dark crescent of New Manchester, the M-class colony world the starbase permanently orbited. Sunrise was only a few hours away, but for now the visible side of the planet was still deeply bathed in darkness, its presence more of feeling than fact. There was no sign of the starship that was to convey him and his Klingon counterparts into Imperial space. A quick glance at his wristwatch informed him that there were still a handful of minutes to go before the ship's appointed time of arrival, and so he should hardly be surprised by her absence from the skies. Captain Drake was known for many things, but his punctuality was hardly foremost amongst them. He was a greatly resourceful captain, and he enjoyed the service of one of the finest helmsmen in the Starfleet, but he seemed to have difficulty when it came to being on time for anything.

The ambassador reflected on the man while he waited. Originally, he knew, Hikaru Sulu and the _Excelsior_ had been the admiralty's first choice for this duty, but Sulu was otherwise engaged with a particularly difficult (and apparently classified, since Harrow had heard nothing official about it) mission on the other side of the quadrant. A replacement had had to be found. There were other starships available, but they were all of the smaller classes, and commanded by junior, markedly inexperienced captains – one of them, T'lak, the master of the _Polychrest_, having only been appointed to his post a week ago. Drake was the most senior captain currently in the sector, his ship, the _Endeavour_, the largest available.

He was also, as Harrow knew well from reports he had read, a highly respected fighting captain; one who had seen more than his share of action in space. He had had several encounters with both Klingon and Romulan warships, as well as uncountable scrapes with pirates and other scum. Drake had a reputation, and it seemed to be one that had spread quite far and wide – Harrow well remembered the look on Kravft's face when he had mentioned Drake's name. The Klingon general seemed pleased by the notion of travelling under the care of the captain; seemed to take it as a compliment, and perhaps that was a good thing. The peace negotiations were going well for the time being, but they remained delicate, and Harrow was very conscious of giving offence.

A flash of light outside caught his attention, and as he watched the strong, surprisingly graceful form of the _Starship Endeavour_ appeared suddenly just outside of the window, decelerating from many hundreds of times the speed of light to a relative stop in the space of a second. The massive vessel banked slowly and settled into a peaceful orbit around the station, her running lights brilliantly illuminating her silvery hull, so that even without any sunlight falling on her the _Endeavour_ was a brilliant near star against the background darkness of space.

"There she is, sir," beamed Hope, pointing excitedly at the starship. Like everyone else in the service, her greatest ambition in life was to one day serve aboard a starship, to go out into deep space and experience the excitement and adventure of exploration first-hand. She was also a great admirer of Drake.

"So she is," Harrow said, unable to match the almost childish excitement possessed by the yeoman, although he tried. He was impressed enough by the sight of the great starship, however; her beautiful lines, the obvious strength that she possessed. Yes, she was an old vessel now; built nearly enough fifty years ago and belonging to the now antiquated Constitution-class; and yes, she was technologically behind the times, but there was something indefinably _right_ about that ship. She belonged to the same class as Captain Kirk's famous _Enterprise, _and she was the kind of vessel that most people instinctively saw in their minds whenever the word 'Starfleet' was mentioned.

They stood and looked at the ship for a while longer, before Hope reluctantly peeled her eyes away from the gorgeous craft, and settled them on the rather less pretty face of Mr. Harrow. "We had best head down to the transporter room, sir. The captain will expect us aboard promptly."

"Of course."

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"Where is that girl?"

William Drake paced back and forth in front of the main transporter dais, his hands clenched angrily by his sides and a matching look of intense irritation scratched deeply into his face. He was a handsome man, tall and strongly built, his face round and possessing intense sea-green eyes that shone like jewels whenever he was pleased, and darkened into storm clouds when something happened to upset him. This was one of those times when a hurricane could be seen in the bearded face of the captain.

The reason for his mounting impatience was that he was about to receive Mr. Harrow and his party, and one of his welcoming group was nowhere to be seen. Commander Victoria McDonald and Security Chief Hannah Wolf were at their places, and behind the transporter controls stood senior transporter officer Israel Sawyer and his mate, all present and correct, but the final member of the party, Drake's old friend and the person with least excuse for being late, was absent.

McDonald watched her captain pacing and bit back the 'I told you so' that was forming on her tongue. She had initially objected when the captain had decided to include his old friend in the party, on the very grounds that she was unreliable and likely to bring discredit on the starship. The commander was hardly fond of the young woman, and this sort of unpunctuality, disregard for duty was just like her. She had no business being on a Starfleet ship in the first place, and was only on the _Endeavour_ because of Drake's influence. Unlike the rest of the officers, she had not attended Starfleet Academy – she hadn't _earned_ her position in the crew.

Drake was just getting ready to contact his errant friend and find out where she was and what she was playing at, when the doors to the transporter room slid open and the young woman charged in. She skidded to a stop right in front of the captain, took a moment to catch her breath, and smiled at him apologetically. "Sorry I'm late. Had a hell of a time –"

"What are you wearing?" Demanded McDonald, who was far less interested in the woman's explanations – call them what they were, _excuses_ – than she was in her bizarre getup.

The young woman rubbed a hand down the smooth black leather of her jacket and her smile turned bashful. "Well…you said to dress smartly."

"I said formal dress, Lieutenant. Dress uniform."

"I don't have a dress uniform."

McDonald sighed heavily, feeling a familiar exasperation well up inside of her. She had only been first officer of the _Endeavour_ for a few weeks, since the ship had been hurriedly put into space to convey Mr. Harrow into Klingon territory, but in that short time she had already come to dearly loathe young Alix Nain, the ship's long-standing helmsman. The two of them had confronted frequently on a number of matters – almost all of which could be traced back to discipline, and Alix's apparent lack of it. It was fast coming to the point where McDonald, usually one of the most stubborn people in creation, was beginning to think that there was just no point in trying anymore.

On the other hand, Drake's bad mood evaporated at once. It was impossible for him to stay angry with Alix for any length of time, and he smiled at her fondly. "You look fine. A little unorthodox, but fine."

In fact, Alix looked pretty much as she always did: her dark red hair was swept back from her forehead into spikes, and she wore her usual combination of navy blue trousers, a brightly coloured shirt, and a black leather jacket that had been battered by years of wear. She had obviously spent a great deal of time polishing her shoes to get them to shine so brilliantly, but otherwise there was no real difference between a smartly dressed Alix and a casually dressed one. This did not surprise Drake terribly: he had known Alix since childhood, and she had told him often that she didn't feel comfortable unless she was wearing her own clothes.

"This is no way to greet a diplomatic envoy," muttered McDonald to herself. Wolf caught her whispered words and glanced over at the first officer, but McDonald ignored her. She was grateful that the security chief was the only one who had heard her – the captain was very protective of his friend, and Alix could be surprisingly sensitive at times; and she was terribly intimidating when she got upset.

"You know," said Drake quietly into his friend's ear, "if you don't have a dress uniform, a regular duty uniform might have been more appropriate."

"This is appropriate."

"How, exactly?"

Alix pulled one of her practiced secretive smiles. "In the words of the window-washer, all will be made clear."

_How often have I heard that from her?_ Drake asked himself. A lot more than once, that was for sure. Alix hated to give a straight answer where a cryptic one would do just as well.

A group of lights began to flash on the transporter control panel, and Sawyer announced to his captain: "Sir, we're receiving signal from the starbase."

He saw the three women with him straighten themselves up and took a second to inspect them. Vicki McDonald's uniform was immaculate, of course, and her curly, dyed-blond hair was tucked up into a knot at the back of her head – not a good style, and it detracted somewhat from what was otherwise quite a pretty face, but it was practical.

Hannah Wolf was tall and lean; her dark-blond hair was shoulder-length and tatty, looking like it hadn't been brushed recently; her cobalt blue eyes held a predatory gleam. There was something just wrong about her in a Starfleet uniform; Drake always half expected to see her wearing animal skins, and Alix had confessed to having similar thoughts.

Although, if they were for the same reason…Drake didn't know, and frankly didn't want to ask.

And Alix looked like…Alix.

"Very good," he decided, happy with his party. "Energize transporter beams, Mr. Sawyer; bring them over." And in an undertone to Alix: "Best behaviour."

"Scout's honour," she promised, but her red eyes twinkled with barely contained glee, and Drake didn't hold much hope of her sticking to her promise.

Columns of sparkling light appeared above the dais and began to resolve into the forms of five people – three humans and two Klingons. In a matter of moments, the transport process was completed, and Drake stepped forward to greet the new arrivals. "I'm Captain William Drake. Welcome aboard the _Starship Endeavour_."

The three human members of the party consisted of a young woman wearing a Starfleet uniform, a taller Asian man carrying a briefcase, and another man, at least ten years older than Drake, dressed in dark, elegant clothes. He came forward now, smiling comfortably. "Thank you, Captain, for that warm welcome. Allow me to present General Kravft of the Klingon Imperial Defence Fleet, and Commander Grownel."

"Gentlemen," said Drake diplomatically to the two Klingons, impressed by the size of them. The captain was over six-feet tall, but even he found himself craning his neck to meet the eyes of the elder Klingon. Kravft had to be close on seven-and-a-half-feet, and even Grownel had a good couple of inches on the captain. Alix, at five-foot-four, would have to tip her head right back to look the Klingons in the face. However, this did not seem to be something that his young friend intended to do. She was holding her head downcast, so that her eyes were on the floor. Why, he did not know.

"Allow me to name my officers: Commander Victoria McDonald, executive officer; Lieutenant Hannah Wolf, head of security; and my helmsman, Lieutenant Alix Nain."

For the first time since coming aboard, Kravft spoke. His deep voice rumbled through the transporter room like thunder, strong and clear, but what he said took the captain by surprise. "Destroyer."

From the baffled looks on Harrow's and Grownel's faces, Drake guessed that the word didn't mean a whole lot to them.

A soft chuckle came from behind him, and Drake turned to see Alix's shoulders shaking with humour. The girl looked up at last, and her red eyes were roaring with laughter. This was obviously _exactly_ the reaction she had been hoping for. She had dressed to be recognized, and it had worked. "Hello again, General. Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. I'm sure it was richly deserved."

Kravft nodded, but gave no verbal response. His attention became focused on the young woman, however, and Drake wondered if he should be worried about that. Alix had encountered a good many people during her adventurous life, and while she had friends scattered throughout the quadrant, she also had more than her fair share of enemies. Hers was the kind of personality that allowed for either loving or loathing, no middle ground. He knew his own position when it came to her, and wondered which side of the line Kravft lay on.

Quickly, so as to avoid any sort of incident, Drake spoke again: "Let me show you to your quarters."

Harrow stepped in. "Actually, Captain, we need to talk about the particulars of this mission. Is there a meeting room or similar where these things could be discussed in private?"

"Conference room is on deck six," replied Wolf in her growling voice. "This way."

"Thank you." And then, to the Asian man and yeoman, "Please, deliver our baggage to our quarters," sweeping a hand to encompass the cases and bags that lay around the feet of himself and the two Klingons.

"Yes, Mr. Harrow."

There was a lot of luggage there, Drake saw, and he doubted that the two humans could handle it between them. He was about to assign Lieutenant Wolf to give a hand when his helmsman spared him the necessity.

"Come on," said Alix, stepping forward and taking one of the heavier cases from around the Klingons' feet in her hand. She lifted the weighty piece of luggage without any difficulty. "I'll show you the way."

As she passed Captain Drake, she smiled up at him and whispered, "I told you it was appropriate."

"Behave yourself, Alix," warned the captain, looking over her shoulder at the yeoman on the transporter stage: a few years younger than Nain. She was a pretty young thing; not exactly beautiful, but Drake knew well what his friend was like.

"I'll fight temptation."

And then she was passed him, leading the two servants away at a brisk pace that caused them to struggle to keep up. Drake watched her go; hoping that for just this once Alix would be as good as her word. He also hoped that she would explain to him whatever association existed between her and General Kravft, but he didn't put too much faith into either thing happening. Alix was reckless, impulsive and secretive. A promise from her was hardly binding, and it often seemed to him that there was nothing she hated more than being completely honest about anything.

"This way, please," he suggested, gesturing for the men to follow after Commander McDonald. He waited behind until the train of bodies had left the room, gave his appreciation to Sawyer and his mate for a smooth and rapid transport, before falling into place at the back of the line.

As they were led down the short stretch of corridor between the transporter room and the turbolift shaft, Kravft dropped his voice to a whisper and said to his junior: "The Destroyer is here. Be vigilant. Always keep one eye on her."

For a big man with a big voice, he could be remarkably quiet when he wanted to be. Of everyone present, only Hannah Wolf caught the words. Curious, she listened carefully for Grownel's reply.

"Yes, General." Was what he said, sounding disinterested.

"Take this matter seriously, boy," Kravft hissed in warning. "The Destroyer is more dangerous than you realize."

Grownel quite obviously did not believe what the general was telling him, and neither did Wolf for that matter. From what she had heard in the transporter room, it seemed that this 'Destroyer' was Alix Nain, their smiley-faced, slightly odd helmsman.

And how could that tiny little girl be dangerous to anyone?

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"Deck eight," announced the incalculably dangerous Nain, grinning broadly, enjoying her time playing tour guide as she led Harrow's two servants around the starship. The _Endeavour_ had been her home since her late teenage years, and to Alix its halls and rooms were as easily recognizable as her own fiery red eyes – unique amongst humans, and quite beautiful, at least in her opinion. She knew that she could find her way around the starship blind – not an exaggeration, she had actually had to do so a few years back, when they had lost all power and been plunged into pitch darkness and freezing cold following a devastating accident. The only reason the ship and crew were alive today was because of Alix's familiarity with the vessel, as well as one or two…other things that were known only to her.

It was apparent to her that the two servants had never been aboard a Constitution-class vessel before, and she further assumed that they had very little, or even no actual experience with starships at all. The yeoman was openly gaping at her surroundings, enchanted by everything that she saw; clearly, just setting foot on the _Endeavour_ was a dream come true for her. This ship was a wonderland, and she moved about it as though she were in a beautiful dream.

Alix glanced occasionally at her out of the corner of her eyes and found herself smiling right along with the yeoman. The woman's tearing great mood was infectious, and Alix admired spirited people. She was already coming to regret her promise to Drake that she would for once listen to her head, rather than her hips. It was so tempting to just disregard that vow, as she had so many in the past, but she was able to refrain from doing so by reminding herself that there was no guarantee that the yeoman would even be interested in her advances. That didn't usually bother her – she was hardly shy – but the ship was on an important mission here, and she could not afford to do anything that might jeopardise it. Even if that something was just a bit of harmless flirting.

The Asian man, who was an indifferent example of a human male Alix felt, was rather less blown away by the ship than the yeoman, and while he glanced at everything they passed just as she did, his was more of an inspectory eye than the girl's. He was judging how worthy a conveyance this was for a person as important as Mister Harrow, and Alix got the distinct impression that he was giving the ship very low marks. This caused a good deal of anger to course through her, for Alix was passionately attached to the _Endeavour_. She loved the old vessel like a sister, and the very idea that someone was thinking ill of her made Alix mad.

"This way," she said to distract herself, putting a bit of a skip into her step as she led them down one of the thousands of seemingly identical corridors. She hesitated for a moment by the door to one of the junior officers' quarters and glanced behind an exposed conduit that ran from floor to ceiling beside the door. What she saw caused her to chuckle, and the good humour that ran into her quite wiped away her previous sour mood. With renewed good spirits she led the servants on, noticing how they were glancing at each other and wondering what it was that she had been doing back there.

The answer was simple enough: a long time ago, Alix had carved her initials, and those of someone very close to her, into the bulkhead behind that pipe, back when she had been living in that cabin. Now, after at least three major refits and countless smaller ones, the four letters, A.N. and K.N., were still there and just as visible as they ever had been. She wondered how long they might last, and merely thinking that brought a pang of regret into her heart. Not for much longer, was the sad answer. Not for much longer.

It was a difficult thought for her to dismiss from her mind, but Alix put it away as best she could and focused on the here and now instead. Live in the moment; it had always been her approach to life, and what was the point in changing it now? Whatever the future had in store for her, that could wait until it became today.

She was so distracted that she almost walked straight past the cabins that had been assigned to Mr. Harrow and his party, and would have done so too if a voice in her head had not purred to her, _"Isn't that where you want to be?"_

"_So it is," _observed Alix, glancing back and reading the serial number off the portal. Bit of a slip, that – she had almost gone striding straight past it. What a fool she'd have looked if that had happened. Imagine not being able to find the guest quarters on her own ship!

"Here we are." She announced, opening the door and gesturing for them to go inside. The two servants did so, still looking about at everything, and once they were inside Alix followed and unceremoniously dumped Mr. Harrow's large and very heavy suitcase on the room's small sofa. She was very glad of all the combat training that she regularly undertook, which gave her formidable strength in her arms and torso, for without those hours of exercise she would have never been able to get that case out of the transporter room. Even as it was, the object had become a burden a while ago, and she had been very tempted to dump it on someone else. Maybe she should have let Wolf show the guests around – the security chief certainly wasn't lacking in strength.

The Asian man took one look around the small, undecorated, gun-metal-grey room and turned towards the lieutenant with disgust. "You are expecting Mr. Harrow to live in accommodation such as this?"

His attitude did not endear him to Alix in the slightest. She put her hands into the pockets of her leather coat and flashed an insincere smile at him. "Yeah. I expect him to live in accommodation _exactly_ like this."

"This is an outrage!"

"These are the guest quarters; they are the nicest rooms on the ship. You should see what the officers and crew live in."

The familiar taste of a lie was on Alix's lips as she mouthed those words, for the truth of the matter was that these were not guest quarters in the sense that they were a special set of cabins reserved for carrying distinguished visitors, but rather that they were some empty rooms, nominally accommodation for junior officers, into which guests could be shoved if necessary. The Constitution-class had no designated guest quarters, for she had long since been downgraded from the prized flagship of the fleet to a medium-cruiser, good only for long-range patrols and exploration. She was a working ship, not a diplomatic courier.

Soon she wouldn't even be that. The Constitution-class was fifty-years old, and the general opinion was that she was behind the times. The new Excelsior-class was the way of the future; the few remaining Constitutions would all be decommissioned before the end of the year.

Alix's own set of rooms was far more comfortable than Mr. Harrow's accommodation, and the captain's was a further leap up the scale. This wasn't a reflection on their higher rank (although Drake, as captain, did command more space than anyone else) but on the amount of time and finances they had devoted to making their bare quarters into a more homely environment.

Her false words, designed to mollify the Asian man, had no effect whatsoever. "Mr. Harrow is one of the most accomplished diplomats in the Federation, and you expect him to tolerate squalid living conditions such as these? It is inconceivable!"

"_Wait until they see their own rooms,"_ purred that dark voice in Alix's mind again, and she nearly chuckled aloud. But even that thought was not enough to dispel her growing bad mood, and Alix fixed Harrow's assistant with a sharp eye. Her smile, false to begin with, was beginning to flicker and fade. "This is the best available."

The helmsman was a small woman, and while she was lean and clearly very fit, there was nothing particularly intimidating about her. Her smooth oval face was so naturally accustomed to smiling that it was difficult for it to display any other expression. However, while her lips were almost constantly tucked up at the corners, her eyes often told a different – and far more truthful – story. Those fiery red eyes, the same colour as her hair, were deeply disturbing to those not used to them, even when she was in a bright and cheerful mood. When anger seeped into them they became the eyes of some demon from the pits of Hell, terrifying to even Alix's closest friends.

Her stare was not quite so intense at that moment, but there was a current of cold anger running about in it that quite petrified the Asian man.

"_Delicious."_

Alix ignored the voice, and the trickle of sadistic laughter that echoed about inside her head. She fixed the man with a stare that he could not escape from, nor tolerate to hold, and said again in a cheery voice quite at odds with her expression, "This is the best available. Mr. Harrow will have to make do as best he can. I appreciate his importance, and we are all familiar with his virtues, but this is a ship of war, not a pleasure cruiser. We have done the best we can; now he will have to do likewise. Okay?"

She held the man in her torturous gaze for a long moment more, watching him squirm, before she released her grip on her anger, some warmth returned to her eyes, and she smiled politely at him. It was an expression that she swept about to include the yeoman, who had been working diligently while her pompous associate and the helmsman had their restrained argument, neatly stowing the diplomat's bags and putting the Klingons' things to one side, ready to move into their rooms.

"I don't think I caught your names."

The man was in no condition to speak, but the girl had escaped Alix's glower and she was happy to provide the details. "This is Mr. Shao Ling, aide to Mr. Harrow. I'm Yeoman Caroline Hope."

"Nice to know you. If we're done with Mr. Harrow's room, I'll show you to the Klingons' accommodation, and your own."

Housing the Klingons had been a problem that had consumed Captain Drake and Commander McDonald during much of the flight to Starbase Seventy. The cold war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire was now officially over, the Khitomer Peace Accords had been signed by all the relevant parties, and the leaders of both sides had publicly declared an end to all animosity. However, the political and the practical truths, as ever, did not hold a great deal in common. There were still bitter feelings on both sides, mistrust and resentment, as was inevitable. The Federation and the Empire had been adversaries for close on a century, and there were a lot of long-standing grudges that would not just disappear over night – if ever they would.

So where to put the Klingons? On the one hand, they were supposedly friends now, and the crew certainly couldn't treat them as anything but, or risk damaging the peace process. On the other hand, there wasn't a person on the ship who would claim to trust a Klingon, and no one was happy with the idea of their guests being too close to sensitive areas – or too near to their own rooms.

In the end a section of deck eight had been cleared of ship's personnel and designated the guest area. It was in this region of the ship that the diplomatic envoys from the Federation and the Klingon Empire were to be housed. Additional security sensors had been discretely installed so that Wolf and her people could keep an eye on everything that happened, and the Klingon and human parties were to be berthed at opposite ends of the corridor, with security officers on patrol twenty-four hours a day to ensure that nothing happened.

Alix personally stowed General Kravft and Commander Grownel's belongings, and as she handled the heavy bags she knew without doubt that there were bladed weapons carried within. Kravft's big, old, wonderfully elegant _bat'leth_ sword was tucked away in one of his cases, she was sure. She hoped that she would see that blade again during the voyage, and even more so that she might be given the pleasure of facing off against it once more. It was rare for her to encounter someone who fought at even close to her own level, and that long-ago encounter with then-Colonel Kravft had delighted her utterly. Although he had aged noticeably since then, a rematch would certainly still be a great deal of fun.

Once she had taken care of the Klingons' belongings, she showed Yeoman Hope and Mr. Ling where they would be staying. Individual cabins had been set aside for both members of Harrow's entourage, and the yeoman at least was delighted with her quarters – far more spacious than the room she shared with three others on the starbase; more of a hotel suite than a resting place for a tired military woman. Ling, on the other hand, who had been born and raised on Earth to a wealthy family, and was therefore used to every kind of luxury, was quite appalled by the sparse, cramped nature of his accommodation – far smaller than the affront to living space that the honourable Mr. Harrow was forced to endure. There were a great many things that he wanted to say on the subject, but the warning look on the young lieutenant's face caught the words in his throat. He recalled all to vividly the hell he had seen in her eyes before; he had no desire for a second viewing, and so he muttered a few words about the kind consideration – appreciated the gesture – and set about his unpacking.

Out in the corridor, Hope approached with a look of bitter regret and sorrow on her pretty face. "I have to apologize for him, Lieutenant. He can be…difficult, I know, but he is utterly devoted to Mr. Harrow, and to the peace process."

"That's good to hear," she said, grinning. "But don't worry about it; he came off far worse than I did. These red eyes of mine can be pretty scary."

"Red eyes?" Said a wondering Hope, who until now had not brought her gaze above the height of Alix's neck, even though to do so she had to tilt her head a way downwards. She did not feel that she had the right to look an officer in the face without invitation, but the lieutenant's words now caused her to look up and she saw there shining in the woman's friendly visage two dark red eyes, full of warmth and gentle good humour. "Oh my."

Hope blinked and her face took on a look of surprise, but she was hardly frightened, as so many were when confronted with Alix's strange eyes – so much the stranger, for they sat out markedly on what was otherwise an entirely human face. "Are they natural? Oh, I'm sorry! Please, I beg your pardon, Lieutenant. I shouldn't have…"

Alix laughed and waved aside the girl's distress. "Forget it. And the answer to your question is yes; I was born with red eyes."

"Extraordinary."

The helmsman grinned, enjoying being the focus of Hope's attention. She could tell that the girl was curious about her bizarreness, but Alix had no plans to tell her how she came to possess such inhuman eyes. It was a secret that she shared with no one, and the reason for her red eyes, her odd hairstyle and clothing, was one and the same – and further, it was the reason why she was so incredibly dangerous.

Yeoman Hope had no idea of any of this. All she saw standing before her was a bright, cheerful young woman. But then, that was all that most people saw when confronted with the enigma that was Alix Nain.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Captain William Drake, who had no more understanding of the dark and terrible threat that his friend presented than the next man, was nevertheless at that moment praying to whatever high power cared to listen that she would behave herself on this voyage. Lieutenant Wolf had waved him aside before they had entered the conference room, and had mentioned to him Kravft's whispered words. They gave him cause to worry. He knew a little about Alix's days as an 'independent adventurer' – as she called it; variously privateer or pirate were the terms others preferred – and knew that 'the Destroyer' was the nickname she had earned for herself; although how was a mystery to him. She'd obviously had some kind of an encounter with Kravft in the past, and it had left its mark on the Klingon. Wolf had spoken of the fear that she had heard in Kravft's voice, had smelt on him. Drake knew the general's reputation, was familiar with his military record, and he could not imagine what would spook a man like that.

He put Alix to the back of his mind and took his position at the head of the conference table. There then followed a few minutes of jostling while everyone took their places. By custom, important guests took a position on the captain's right, the senior-most amongst them closest to the captain, while the ship's officers sat down the left side of the table. However, it quickly became apparent that the inverse was the case on Klingon ships, with General Kravft moving straight for Commander McDonald's seat when the captain asked them to sit.

After clearing up this little misunderstanding, another arose as to the order of seniority – whether a Klingon soldier held greater prominence than a Federation diplomat. It took some time, but in the end it was agreed that Kravft should sit at the captain's right hand, with Mr. Harrow beside him, and Commander Grownel next in line.

During this time, Drake discretely drummed his fingers on the shiny black table top, his mind drifting inexorably back to Alix. He had been greatly preoccupied with her of late, ever since the beginning of this hurried and unexpected commission.

It wasn't anything that Alix herself had done that kept bringing her into his thoughts, nor was it any kind of unwanted attraction – he knew perfectly her feelings towards men; and at any rate there was someone else special in his life – but rather a handful of words that he had overheard, completely by accident, while he had been waiting to speak to Vice-Admiral Granger on Earth.

"The problem with Drake," Granger had said to another admiral, "is his dogged protection of that damned woman. Made all sorts of fuss when he brought her into the service in the first place, and she hasn't distinguished herself since then. Oh no! If he'd got rid of her years ago, a man of his abilities and influence, he'd be a rear-admiral by now. Stupid, bloody waste!"

There was no doubt in his mind who that 'damned woman' might be. He did not for one moment doubt that making Alix a part of Starfleet had been the right decision – without it, his ship might have been lost on numerous occasions – but a nagging question had presented itself to him on that day, and he'd been thinking about it ever since. Was Granger right? Had he scuppered his chances of promotion, his very career, by standing so steadfastly beside a woman whom the admiralty considered untrustworthy and troublesome?

It was a question that he was determined not to answer, because in the depths of his heart he already knew what the answer must be, and he knew how it would affect his treasured friendship if he were to acknowledge it. Alix was one of the most important people in his life, but Starfleet _was_ his life.

It was a hard thing not to think about.

"I believe we can begin now, Captain," said Harrow, the man's voice distracting the captain from his private musings. He looked up and was partly surprised to find the party gathered neatly around the table, sitting quietly and attentively – he had begun to doubt that such a thing was at all possible.

"Please, proceed."

Harrow folded his hands and began. "Very well. As you know, General Kravft and I have been negotiating proposals to open up the Neutral Zone to merchant traffic – something that would be economically beneficial to both our people."

"Of course."

"We've made some real headway; however, there are still a few issues that have to be…ironed out. I won't bore you with the details – it's really more my concern than it is yours. The simple fact of the matter is that we need more time to work at it. Now, General Kravft is commander of the Klingon border stations, and any agreement has to be made through him. Unfortunately for diplomatic efforts, the general must return to Klingon space immediately. He is a member of the High Council, as well as a military man, and a matter has developed at home that requires his urgent attention." Harrow looked to Kravft for support in this matter. The Klingon nodded once, but otherwise he was reactionless. The diplomat continued: "We therefore need to move the site of the conference from Starbase Seventy to a location in Klingon space…I…I'm embarrassed to say that I forget the name of the place."

"_In'jara'wa_," provided Grownel, when it became apparent that his general intended to say nothing.

Drake had never heard the word before in his life, and he had no idea if it was a ship, a space station, a planet or what. From the baffled looks on the faces of McDonald and Wolf, it seemed that neither of them knew either. Not particularly surprising that Wolf wouldn't know – she was not a very knowledgeable person. McDonald had called up some information on a PADD, which she read through quickly, drew a blank on, and shrugged helplessly.

The captain reached for the comm. "Drake to Nain."

"Alix here. What can I do for you, Skipper?"

"Ever heard of an _In'jara'wa_?" He pronounced the name with particular care, but even so he found himself tripping over the strange, foreign sound.

Alix didn't disappoint him – she rarely did. "_In'jara'wa_? Sure. Klingon outpost on their side of the border. Not a very big one, but it's in a quiet region."

"How far?"

"Say…three weeks at warp six. Something like that."

_Bless you, Alix_, thought Drake. He had no idea how she came to be so well versed on the subject of obscure Klingon bases, and at this particular moment he didn't much care. "Set a course and engage at warp six straight away."

"Aye, aye."

"We'll be underway momentarily. I trust that three weeks is not too much time, General?"

"I had expected longer," admitted Kravft, speaking at last. "Three weeks will give me time to prepare for my appearance in the council chambers."

"Then that's settled. Is there anything else?" No one offered any sort of response, and Drake took that to be a negative. "Then I believe we're done here. Commander, the bridge is yours; get us underway. Gentlemen, if you would care to follow me, I'll give you a brief tour of the vessel."

"I would like that very much," said Harrow, who had never seen the inside of a starship before.

They rose to leave, but as they headed towards the door the rumble of Kravft's voice caused Drake to stop. "Captain. A word with you."

"Very well. Mr. Harrow, Mr. Grownel, Lieutenant Wolf will show you the points of interest on this deck." The doors closed behind them, and Drake turned patiently towards the mountainous Klingon. "Yes, General? What can I do for you?"

He hesitated for a long moment, obviously unsure of how to say what he wanted to say. It was a matter that called for some delicacy, even a Klingon knew that; but delicacy was not his speciality. "I am curious to know how you came to be acquainted with the Destroyer."

"You mean Alix?" A nod. "I have known her since the day she was born. She's my friend. And you? How do you know her?"

"We met each other once. In battle."

It was all that he would say on the matter.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Destroyer was in the depths of the ship, leaning her succulent form against the cabin bulkhead and watching attentively as her human counterpart stripped out of her clothing and wriggled into a Starfleet duty uniform. A low whistle of appreciation carried from her pale lips in the moment between the discarding of one set of clothes, and the putting on of the other. Alix glanced over her shoulder at her audience, smiled saucily and blew her a kiss. The Destroyer considered that to be a bit of a tease, since the human was at that point getting dressed, and so any kind of serious fun was out of the question. Later, she promised herself, knowing that Alix would have no objections.

If people had been able to see Alix Nain and the Destroyer standing side by side they would have been quite amazed by the similarities between them. Indeed, the creatures were virtual twins, and if it weren't for one or two features of the Destroyer that singled her out as being something other than human, they would have been indistinguishable. They were both five-foot-four, both in excellent physical condition, and both possessing the same elegant curves and swells, perfectly proportioned; both women had oval shaped skulls, red-black hair, so much like the colour of blood and fire, and matching eyes; they both wore their hair swept away from the forehead into porcupine-like quills. To the casual eye, they were identical.

A more careful observer, or at least one with sharper vision, would notice the differences. While Alix's skin was a healthy tan, the Destroyer's was sickly blue-white, like that of a corpse; the Destroyer possessed elongated incisors, which always made Alix think of vampires whenever she saw them; her red eyes literally flamed, lit up from within, as though a fire burned behind her pupils, and a crackling nimbus of red energy surrounded her entire person. Her stance and expression was very different to Alix's: tight with raw, ever-present fury. Her smile was far rarer than Alix's, and when it came it was a twisted look of sadistic enjoyment. Her chief pleasures were violent in nature, and while Alix herself found great joy in combat – especially bloody combat – it never caused in her the same kind of orgasmic glee that it did in her alien doppelganger.

This curious beast waited until Alix had pulled on and neatly fastened her uniform jacket, before speaking. Her voice, as with most other things about her, was quite like Alix's own, except that Alix had never been known to purr, and words floated from her tongue, rather than burned. _"A remarkable piece of restraint from you today."_

Alix checked her appearance in the bathroom mirror, and after running a comb through her hair to get the spikes back into shape she was happy with it. She moved her attention to the Destroyer, and smiled at the ghostly form of her alter ego. _"With Hope? Yeah, I was proud of myself, too. I'd promised to behave, but still…"_

She should have guessed that she was on entirely the wrong line, and when the Destroyer's lips curved into a grim parody of her own smile she did indeed do so. By then, it was a little late to be relevant, though. _"Not Hope. Ling. In your place I wouldn't have done nearly so well."_

"_Meaning?"_

"_Meaning I would have torn his limbs from their sockets and beaten him to death with them."_

Alix could have, and should have, guessed that without needing to be told. A lot of things could be said about her other self – some of them good, most of them bad – but that she was tolerant or forgiving were not amongst them. It was remarkably easy to offend or annoy her, and the result of such a mistake was nearly always excessively bloody. Alix alone could insult or tease the Destroyer and escape with her limbs intact, for the alien couldn't very well damage her host. Most people were not so lucky.

"_What did Ling do to cause you offence?"_

"_You should know, Alix, that I hardly need a reason. He was there, he was breathing – it's enough. In this case, though, I do have a better reason. He had no respect for the ship, and he behaved as though he were the most important person in the universe. Egos like his I enjoy bursting all over the deck."_ She laughed wickedly, her eyes shining with grisly humour.

"_Murder is impossible to get away with on a starship, Kana."_

"_Not so. I could make it look like an accident. Alternatively, the corpse could simply…vanish!"_ She flashed her fangs, and laughed again, full of sinister good humour.

"You're in great spirits today." 

A shrug. _"This commission has the potential to be interesting, Alix. A voyage into Klingon space and two of the muscle-brained brutes on our ship! No doubt they will do or say something stupid before long, and we will have the chance to skewer them!"_

"_I somehow doubt that killing the Klingon envoy is going to do wonders for our peace negotiations."_

"_Peace,"_ the Destroyer snorted, saying the word as though it left a foul taste in her mouth. _"Why do your people want peace with those fools? They're weak, and without your aid they will die in the next fifty-years. Sooner, if you wish."_

There was a great deal that Alix might have said to this. She couldn't be described as a pacifistic person, and she had seen too much death in her life to let it affect her anymore (a lifetime with the Destroyer guaranteed that she would be exposed to some very morbid things) but even so she found the casual way in which her friend discussed the extinction of an entire race monstrous. There was no point in venting her feelings, though, as Kana Nain was a fairly diabolical being, and all that anything she said would do was give her greater pleasure.

The beep of the comm and the sound of Drake's voice interrupted the silent conversation taking place between the two Nains, and Alix at least was grateful for it. She skipped to her communicator and flipped it open. "Alix here. What can I do for you, Skipper?"

"Ever heard of an _In'jara'wa_?"

"We have indeed, haven't we, Alix?" 

"_In'jara'wa_? Sure. Klingon outpost on their side of the border. Not a very big one, but it's in a quiet region."

"How far?"

Off the top of her head, Alix wasn't exactly certain. Fortunately for her, her insubstantial friend was useful for more than giving her nightmares, and she whispered the relevant figures into her host's ear, which were relayed without pause to the captain.

"Set a course and engage at warp six straight away."

"Aye, aye."

"In'jara'wa_. I wonder if they still remember us there?"_

"_Let's hope not."_

Kana Nain grinned from ear to ear, and Alix was pretty sure that her other self was hoping for no such thing.

A final check of her neat appearance in the mirror, and Alix made her way out of her quarters to the nearest turbolift, her ghostly companion walking silently at her side. There were few other people in the ship's hallways, most people either being at their duty stations or relaxing in their quarters, but Alix still passed one or two crewmen on their way between departments, one of whom walked straight through Kana's immaterial form. The spirit turned sharply and glowered murderously at the young man, who continued on his path, totally oblivious.

"_Watch where you're going, fool!"_

"_He can't hear you."_

"_Give me control for five minutes and I will force him to listen!"_

"_Nah."_

"_Two, then."_

Alix laughed at the bartering and called a turbolift. The ride from her quarters on deck five up to the bridge on deck one was a rapid one, and one that she enjoyed in as close to solitude as she ever came: Kana was silent, leaning petulantly against the bulkhead, all trace of her previous good mood utterly vanished. She'd make it up to the Destroyer later, she silently promised. Once they were off duty she would let Kana have a little fun.

The turbolift doors puffed open onto the bridge of the _Starship Endeavour_, and Alix stepped out into the room where she had spent most of her post-teenage life. The hum of working machinery, the lit console panels, the positions of the uniformed men and women and even the smells of the bridge were so familiar to her that she was hardly consciously aware of any of them. There was a pattern to the place, constant and unchanging, and the only time that she really noticed anything was when something was out of place – different.

A vague feeling that things were wrong troubled her as she stepped down to the lower level of the bridge, where the joint helm and navigation desk and the captain's chair was located. She ignored the feeling, knowing where it came from. She had yet to get used to the new faces that filled familiar seats. Whenever she looked over at tactical she still expected to see the dark-skinned face of Carl Rodriguez sitting there, smiling back at her with that wonderfully warm expression of his. Instead, she saw the big, bald, blue head of Lieutenant Brok looking at her with moody hostility. She blew him a kiss and turned to her work.

The new crew were all well and good, and Alix – who was notoriously hard to please in these matters – was reluctantly forced to admit that they had some idea what they were doing; but they weren't _right_. They weren't the people who were _meant_ to be on the ship. It wasn't that she held anything personally against them – she had already made some good friends amongst the new intake – it was just that she'd rather trade the whole lot of them in for even half of the original crew back. She had had years to get to know them, had liked them all, and they had been more tolerant of her strangeness than their replacements. Alix always liked people who gave her a chance to prove herself, and thoroughly loathed those who didn't.

Hence her sour relationship with Commander McDonald. She hadn't intended for it; in fact, she had meant to give the new first officer as easy a time of things as possible; but McDonald had not extended her the same courtesy. The commander had heard about Alix – had heard the words 'dangerous' and 'pirate' attached to her name – and she had come aboard with her mind already made up that the helmsman was bad news.

After getting off on the wrong foot with Alix to begin with, McDonald had then made the hideous mistake of thinking that she could order the younger woman around, abuse her powers as first officer, and the helmsman wouldn't dare do anything about it because McDonald had a more sophisticated rank badge on her shoulder. In that respect she could not have been more wrong. Alix had absolutely no respect for pins or medals. She didn't follow someone because they had a high rank, but rather because they had done something to earn her respect and her loyalty. Drake had done plenty; McDonald had done nothing. Their relationship, never a good one, had deteriorated with incredible rapidity; within a few days of _Endeavour_ leaving Earth neither woman could stand the presence of the other aboard.

It was ironic that Alix should be giving so much thought to Commander McDonald, for a moment later the turbolift doors whisked open again and the woman herself strode out onto the bridge as if she owned the place. She checked that everyone was at their place and working conscientiously, stifled a displeased look when she noticed the presence of Nain at the helm, and stepped down to take the centre chair. "Are we ready to get underway?"

"Course is laid in, Commander," said Alix, leaning across the big desk and making a final adjustment. Ensign Manning, the navigation officer, glanced nervously at her and kept his fingers clear. Alix was the best flight control officer on the ship, and it was widely known that she trusted no one else but herself to do the job properly. Whether or not he resented her low opinion of him was hard to tell – he was petrified of the red-eyed woman, and did his best to keep his feelings of her to himself.

"Then engage, Mr. Nain," instructed McDonald impatiently; as though she didn't know what Alix was doing standing on ceremony for. Of course, it was common practice in the service to wait for the order before engaging the engines. Most of the time Alix did not bother with this, but with a diplomatic group on board she thought it would be best to do things properly and earn the ship a good name.

"Aye," she muttered, accelerating the ship up to warp six. Usually, the jump into warp and the pleasant vista of stars sliding by outside was a tonic for her nerves, but right now her irritation was so intense that they did nothing for her. McDonald was intentionally trying to get under her skin, that much was obvious, but what really annoyed her was that it was working!

She glanced back over her shoulder at the first officer, and felt a stab of loathing. There weren't many people whom she would gladly leave to Kana's tender mercies, but in her current mood, McDonald made the list.

"_You look tense,"_ observed the Destroyer, her hands on Alix's shoulders, gently massaging her tight muscles. Of course, Kana's hands were just as much a figment of Alix's imagination as the rest of her body, but that trifling detail had no effect on the good work they were doing. _"Oh, that's nice."_

Kana applied a little extra pressure, worked out one last knot of tension from Alix's muscles, before dropping her arms down to her sides and sprawling out across the console, lying on her right side so that she could look easily at Alix without having to tilt her head. It was a good thing that her body was partly transparent, and that anyway Alix knew instinctively where every button was on her panel, otherwise there could potentially have been a disaster.

A hot hand stroked her cheek. _"What's the matter?"_

"_McDonald. She's really getting under my skin."_

Burning red eyes peered over Alix's shoulder and took in the sight of Commander McDonald studying a report brought to her by an engineering crewman. _"Want me to _remove_ her skin?"_

"_Don't tempt me."_

"_I'm the little red guy sitting on your shoulder."_ Fangs gleamed; Alix had once described her as being 'demonic', and that was an image of herself that the Destroyer loved greatly. _"It's my business to tempt you."_

"_What about the little angel? Doesn't she get a say?"_

"_No. Dead, and buried in an unmarked grave."_

The comment made her laugh, and if anything was guaranteed to bring unfavourable attention from McDonald it was inappropriate mirth on the bridge. "What's funny, Lieutenant?"

"Oh, just thinking of something that Brok said the other day."

"What?" Exclaimed Brok, fearing that he was about to be made the butt of another of Alix's little jokes, and looking frantically for a way to avoid it. "I haven't said anything funny to you."

"Hmm. You're right. You and funny…what was I thinking?"

Brok scowled; a few of the braver hands chuckled a little, some of the rest wore smiles on their faces; Alix threw the Bolian a purely affectionate grin to let him know that she was just kidding. His scowl deepened, but she saw the answering smile that was in his eyes.

The big Bolian tactical officer was Alix's best enemy – her own description for him; Kana was rather more attached to 'irritating fool', but then that was what she called a lot of people. Brok fell neatly down on the side of the people who quite dearly loved Alix Nain. He was, however, generally a reserved man, and he hated a great display of affection. For this reason he maintained a pretence, a very creditable pretence, of utterly loathing the young woman's guts. No opportunity to mock her, however slight, passed him by, and if Alix ever did anything to embarrass herself Brok would be there to laugh hard and long. His act was a good one, and many of the ship's company were uncertain of how he really felt about the odd helmsman – McDonald was more pleasant with him than she otherwise might have been, believing that they saw eye-to-eye on this matter, if nothing else – but as far as it went with Alix, he might have been wearing a great big badge that read 'I love you'; she had not been fooled by his hostility for a nanosecond.

For her part, Alix enjoyed winding up the Bolian just as much as he did her. It was a game that they played, and one that kept things between them interesting.

"Belay that," McDonald instructed, before Brok could think of any reply to Nain's tease. "Attend to your duties."

Kana slid off the helm console and passed silently through Alix Nain, stalking across the bridge to where McDonald was sat. She wrapped her body around the command chair, peeled back her lips to reveal her fangs, and dug them into McDonald's neck. Alix winced, for an instant remembering only that her dark friend would quite happily drink the lifeblood from a person, forgetting that at this precise moment she was completely incapable of doing so.

McDonald crossed her legs and tapped a finger impatiently on the armrest of her chair; completely oblivious to the diabolical being that was having fantasies about murdering her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

When Captain Drake emerged onto the bridge nearly two hours later, Kana was still very much present, although by now she had detached herself from McDonald's throat, and was loitering around Alix's side, looking and acting very much like a bored child. The arrival of the captain on the deck was the first event of any interest to happen in at least an hour – even Alix hadn't been talking to her, too focused on pretending to be working – and the Destroyer was going out of her mind with boredom. One might have expected her to be more used to the monotony of a Starfleet officer's life, given that she had lived inside of Alix for the past two decades, but she had never come to accept the tediously long periods of inaction.

"_Captain on the bridge,"_ muttered the spirit, and when a yeoman repeated her call out loud a split-second later, she hissed at him: _"Yes, I said that."_

McDonald vacated the command chair and took over her position at communications, leaving it free for Drake. The captain smiled at her, a silent expression of thanks, but he made no move to fill the vacant seat. Instead, he approached the helm and leant over Alix's shoulder, taking a quick glance at her instruments and not quite being able to read any of them – he'd never been a pilot.

"How are we doing?"

"On course, holding speed. We can drop off our guests in just under twenty-three days. Sooner, if you'd like."

"The general wasn't expecting to make it home before midway into next month, so I don't see any need to go faster."

"Yeah. We're carrying plenty of stores for a few months in space," Alix agreed. "To be honest, I don't mind a long, slow cruise. It's just…"

"What?"

She glanced about, suddenly uncomfortable. No one was listening – eavesdropping was hardly a Starfleet pastime – but even so she dropped her voice even quieter, and her next words were spoken in Vulcan, there being no Vulcans on the bridge and the difficult language was not often studied by humans. "Nothing I'd say here."

Drake nodded, understanding his friend's discretion. Alix had some troubles on her mind – he had a good idea what they were – and she would not say anything in front of her shipmates, for fear of upsetting them. He knew her well enough to know that she would not share whatever she was thinking with anyone else; that normally she would have sat on her thoughts, but he was both her treasured friend and her greatly respected captain, and so she would open her mind to him. He appreciated it.

"Commander McDonald, Lieutenant Nain, will you join me in my ready room?"

The captain's small, comfortable office was located just off the bridge – a room where he could work and think, even sleep if necessary, in peace and still be just a second away from the bridge if an unexpected action were to develop. The ready room had been incorporated into the earliest designs of Starfleet vessel, but had been dropped by the time the Constitution-class came into service. It had been felt by the admiralty at the time that, with turbolifts so markedly improved over the earliest versions, the captain was never more than five minutes away from the bridge anyway, and therefore the ready room was unnecessary. A few high-profile disasters in space had proved them wrong, and with the new generation of starships the ready room had been reintroduced. The _Endeavour_, benefiting from a recent thorough upgrade to bring her as close into line with modern technology as the old boat could be made, now boasted a ready room off the main bridge – one that spent more of its time being used as an informal briefing room than for the purpose Starfleet had originally envisioned for it.

Drake took his place behind his desk, Commander McDonald in the seat across from him, and Alix sprawled out comfortably on his couch. For once the first officer chose to ignore the breach of protocol – she was far more interested in what the captain might have to say than yet another bit of misbehaviour from Alix.

"How are our guests, sir?"

"For the moment they seem to be happy enough. How long that will last is anyone's guess. They enjoyed the tour – General Kavagh in particular was very interested in everything I had to show him. He told me that he had fought a ship like this one, the _Eagle_, and he was delighted to now know where she got her incredible power from."

"That was nice of him to say," said McDonald, feeling that some sort of a response was required of her. She was of the new breed of Starfleet officer, who looked on the Constitution-class as an antique, something belonging to yesterday's fleet, but she knew that the captain was heartily attached to his vessel and she would say nothing that might offend him.

"Cross your fingers that there might be some action on this voyage, Will," grinned Alix Nain. "We could give Kravft something to be really impressed about!"

Drake laughed, sharing in his old shipmate's enthusiasm. "Yeah, we could. Tell Brok to keep his eyes peeled, Alix."

"Brok?" She snorted. "Wouldn't trust him to notice a planet, let alone an enemy ship."

Some good-natured laughter followed, and McDonald smiled. The captain was in a wonderfully good mood, and it was infectious – his beaming grin and shining sea-green eyes brought warmth into everyone who saw them. Even Kana, slumped invisibly against a wall and listening with half an ear wasn't unaffected.

"I've been thinking that we should do something to really welcome our guests aboard. Show them the hospitality of the _Endeavour_."

"A party? Great! Leave it all to me, Will. You won't be sorry."

Drake, who had been to a few of Alix's parties, very much doubted that: he'd need his guests to be able to stand up the next day. "Actually, I was thinking something more along the lines of a formal dinner."

This dampened her spirits, but only momentarily. "That's an even better idea, actually. Klingons love a good feast. They'd certainly appreciate it."

McDonald threw her support behind the plan. "It's a good idea, sir. But are we in any shape to throw a dinner party?"

"We're well founded in terms of stores," said Drake. "Alix and I made sure of that. But as for the preparation…I've never asked for anything like this from the galley on this voyage. Our old cook could have put together a feast fit for an Andorian king in a couple of hours, but the guy we have down there now…" He shook his head. Quality chefs were hard to come by in Starfleet, and Drake bitterly regretted the loss of the man who had served him on previous commissions. He had wanted to rejoin the ship, but he had been out of the system, and they hadn't the time to wait for him, so Drake had been reluctantly forced to recruit a replacement.

"I'll see what I can do about motivating the galley, sir."

"I'd appreciate it, Vicki. I'm thinking of inviting Mr. Harrow and the two Klingons – obviously – as well as the senior staff. I've already done a little background research in preparation, and it doesn't look like Chef will have to worry about any speciality dishes – no vegetarians in the party, and no allergies that I could see."

"Always makes things easier," said Alix. "What are you thinking of serving?"

"Good question. Something in the poultry line? I'm not brilliant at planning these things."

"Duck's always good," offered Alix, purely out of personal preference – she couldn't get enough of the stuff. "Goose, too."

"Fish usually goes down well," suggested McDonald. "A range of small dishes might be the best approach, Captain."

"Pick and mix."

"Something like that," agreed the commander, actually smiling at Alix.

"It's the way I'd go. Only thing I'd suggest is to stick something raw and bloody in for our Klingon guests – they like their food as close to freshly slaughtered as it can come. A roast of beef, cooked raw, should do the trick."

"You think?"

A shrug. "Always tasted to me like I was biting a cow's arse when I had to eat it."

"Fine; add it to the menu. What do you think about wine?"

"I think it's okay. I prefer Malibu."

Drake chuckled. "I meant what wine would be appropriate for the dinner? Red? White? I have no idea about these things."

"I'm hardly the epitome of sophistication myself, Will. Commander?"

McDonald shrugged. "I'm afraid it is not my area of expertise, either. I'm sure Chef will know."

"Yes," Drake agreed. He'd certainly be surprised otherwise. "I was thinking of wine to accompany the main course, but after that…it's a pity we're not carrying any Romulan Ale, or that firewater the Klingons are keen on."

"Blood wine. I might have something kicking around in my bottom drawer that'll do." When she saw the look that McDonald was giving her, Alix smiled and reassured the commander: "Nothing illegal, sir. Promise."

"That's not what I was worried about. Have you got enough bottles to go around, Lieutenant?"

Alix appreciated the effort at being civil, she appreciated it greatly, and a beaming grin appeared on her face, an expression of such tremendous warmth and affection that McDonald couldn't help thinking it was worth cutting the girl a bit more slack in the future, if only to be blessed with that smile again. "Plenty, sir. My bottle drawer is crammed to bursting."

A few more details of the planned dinner were settled, and then Commander McDonald took her leave to go and rouse the galley. When she was gone Drake moved from behind his desk to sitting on the couch next to Nain, her head resting on his shoulder and her eyes lightly closed, resting, composing herself.

"Imagine you not having a dress uniform," Drake chuckled, thinking back to the reception in the transporter room.

"Imagine that."

"How can you not have a dress uniform?"

"I guess I never got around to buying one. I had a big list of things to buy when you first talked me into this Starfleet thing, but I never got around to half of them."

Drake laughed again, unconcerned with whether this was the real truth or just a story that Alix had invented that moment. The truth was flexible with her.

"What's on your mind, Red Eyes?" He asked, calling her by the pet name he had for her; the one that always made her smile coming from him, despite its cheesiness.

"Klingons. I've got nothing against the Klingons, Will, you know that, but there are others that do. Not too long ago skirmishes between our peoples were common. There's a lot of hard feelings."

"I know." It was one of the most difficult things about the new peace, setting aside old grudges and moving on. Not everyone could do it. Indeed, Drake had been surprised by how difficult even some old friends in the service found it.

"Point is: there could be some people not exactly comfortable with sharing the ship with the Klingons."

"Anyone in particular you're thinking of?"

A shrug. "Nah. Can't say there is. I don't really know the new guys well enough to guess. I'd be surprised if there isn't at least someone, though."

Was she being completely honest with him, or did she actually have a couple of names in mind and just didn't want to say them, out of some sort of respect for the people involved?

Drake wouldn't think about it. "So would I. We can't hope for miracles, Alix, but I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect a fairly quiet cruise."

"Fingers crossed."

"Right. And if anyone has a grudge they feel like taking up with Kravft or Grownel, I'm sure you can persuade them to change their minds, right, Red Eyes?"

Those eyes flickered open now, smiling brightly. "No problem."

"That's my girl."

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There were Klingons on the ship. Klingons! Filthy, barbaric savages! Her throat tightened with fury at the very thought of two (not just one, but two!) of the brutes sharing the same decks as her, breathing the same air. It was a repugnant thought, one that she felt in every fibre of her being.

She had long known that Klingons would be joining the ship, of course. Their mission had been no secret, and she had been aware since the beginning of the commission that the time would come when she would have to pretend to set aside her feelings and greet those monsters as friends and allies. The thought had always sickened her, and if there had been any way of avoiding it, she would have taken it. Unfortunately, the only way she could have gotten out of the meeting was by rejecting the _Endeavour_ placement, and that would have been both a slap in the face for Commodore Harte, who had worked so hard to get it for her in the first place, and tantamount to shooting herself in the foot as far as her career was concerned.

Starfleet was currently going through a phase of cutbacks. With the long cold war with the Klingon Empire now officially over, the need for such a vast fleet had suddenly disappeared. A lot of the more battle-orientated ships were being mothballed, and there were currently no plans to replace them with more peaceful vessels of exploration. As a result, Starfleet suddenly had a lot more personnel in its ranks than it knew what to do with. Unemployed officers and crewmen could be found kicking around on starbases and planets throughout the Federation, assigned to no ship and with no real chance of getting a posting soon.

She had previously been a science officer on the carrier _Indefatigable_, one of the first ships to be put into mothballs following the signing of the Khitomer Accords. For eight months she had been stuck on the shore, looking desperately for any ship that might take her and finding none; every other unemployed science officer in the service was doing the exact same thing, and there were a great many superior to her out there. She was lucky to have a friend in Commodore Harte, lucky that the _Endeavour_ had been rushed into space, or else she might never have seen active duty again.

She was grateful to be on a ship; she loathed being on a ship with Klingons.

At that moment, while Drake and Alix were talking in the ready room, the science officer was on her way back to the bridge. She was the primary watch science officer, and her usual place was at the vast bank of monitors in the starboard bulkhead, just next to the number one turbolift. She would have been there now, had she not been called down to one of the labs to view the results of an experiment being run by Ensign Pini on some plant samples the junior had brought aboard from her last posting. The science officer had enjoyed the distraction, but now she was anxious that Commander McDonald, a taught first officer, might have a few words to say to her.

The sight of the commander emerging from the turbolift was a shock, and for a horrible fraction of a second, the science officer actually thought that McDonald had come looking for her. That thought vanished when the human's head turned towards her and an unexpected smile appeared. "Sarn. On your way to the bridge?"

"Yes, Commander. I was called down to the lab to participate in an experiment."

"Did it go well?"

"Fascinating," replied the Vulcan science officer, knowing that her superior was not even slightly interested in any matter of science.

"Glad to hear it. I'm on my way down to the galley at the moment, and the captain's in conference with Nain. If you hurry, the bridge will be yours," cried McDonald, her face flushed with thoroughly uncommon pleasure. Sarn wondered for a moment if the woman was quite all right, but she didn't say anything, and she and the commander parted.

Drake was still away from the bridge when Sarn arrived, and she hesitated for a moment outside the turbolift, trying to decide between taking her place at science or enjoying the comfort of the command chair. Mr. Moore was manning the console in her absence, and he was one of the sharpest and most capable sensor operators in the ship. Logically, therefore, the best place for her was in the centre chair.

Conveniently, this was just where she _wanted_ to be, and she settled into the high-backed chair happily.

"You look far too comfortable," murmured Brok, who had come down to stand at her side.

Sarn turned her chair so that she was facing her friend. Her dark eyes twinkled, which was as close to a smile as she would allow herself on the bridge. "I could get used to this. Brok, how are our Klingon guests doing?"

"I wouldn't know. I'm tactical, remember? Not security. You should ask Wolf when she gets up here."

That was exactly what the science officer did when, a few minutes later, Lieutenant Wolf prowled out onto the bridge. The predatory woman seemed a little surprised by the question, and even more so by the quiet hatred in Sarn's voice when the Vulcan said the word 'Klingon', but she but she didn't presume to ask questions of her betters. "I took them to their quarters when the captain was done with them. They have been peaceful, so far. They seem to be happy with their rooms."

"You're monitoring them?"

"Yes. It's…it's…" she struggled for the right phrase; mercifully it came to her: "Standard procedure."

Sarn nodded, reassured to know that their 'guests' were under the watchful eye of Lieutenant Wolf. Klingons were dangerous and untrustworthy, and with two of them aboard they could do a lot of damage before a human security team could stop them. Wolf was a different matter, however. If the Klingons were stupid enough to try anything while she was watching, she'd tear them limb from limb, and possibly eat the remains. The ship was quite safe.

Now, if only the Klingons would do something stupid…

The ready room doors hissed open, and Sarn suddenly found herself alone in the centre of the bridge, Brok having scampered back to the tactical console as fast as his portly form would permit, and Wolf quickly replacing Manning at navigation – the young man sliding across to the vacant helm. The tactical and security officers put up a very good pretence of having been working diligently all this time, but Brok's face had turned a much paler blue than usual and he had guilt written all across his forehead.

"Interrupting something, was I?" Enquired Alix Nain, laughter flowing freely from her lips. The helmsman stood just outside the ready room, her arms folded across her chest and glee shining from her. She was particularly delighted by the panic she had caused to erupt in Brok, even more so because he was now scowling murderously at her.

"Ha, ha! Should have bloody known it was you!"

"You should have seen your face, Blue. It looked something like this." She snatched up a PADD that had been lying unattended on an auxiliary science console and raced a stylus across it. Holding it up for Brok to see, there was a crude sketch of a baldhead with great big bulging, terrified eyes.

Some restrained laughter drifted around the bridge, accompanied by Brok's low moan of irritation. Alix was easily one of the strangest people who had ever worn the uniform, but she brought some humour and fun into the ship, and consequently she was quite popular amongst the crew. There were a few people who thought poorly of her because of her largely unknown (and what little was known wasn't exactly nice) history, and few would claim to really trust her, but she was a welcome presence.

"Sitting comfortably, Sarn?"

"Very much so. I take it I will be required to relinquish the seat soon?"

"Probably not. The skipper's busy planning a big dinner for our guests, and I imagine it's going to take him a while. Relax everyone. Not you, Blue; you're relaxed enough already."

He'd have told her to leave off, if it wouldn't have sounded whiny and pathetic. He had started this war of insults with Alix, but the human girl was carrying it off far better than he did.

Still smirking, Alix jumped down to the large desk console that housed the helm and navigation boards. "Wolf, I'm glad to see you're up here. I noticed an ion storm ahead, one point to starboard. We won't come near it until tomorrow morning, but I'd like you to keep an eye on it. It's not going our way right now, but those things can turn around without any warning, and I don't want to get caught in the middle of a storm if we can avoid it."

The woman's bright cobalt eyes swept across her instruments. Very quickly she found the storm that Alix was referring to, and she could see why the helmsman might want to avoid it. The _Endeavour_ was a tough ship, and ancient mariners would have called her weatherly, but that storm was churning something fierce, and going into it would be uncomfortable. "I see it. I'll monitor it closely."

"Thanks. You taking the graveyard shift tonight?"

"Of course."

"Great. Saves us having to leave a memo for anyone. I'll probably pop in during the night and take the helm for a couple of hours, myself." She smiled. "Right now, I'm off down to the galley to talk to Chef. Keep the chair warm for me, Pat."

"Commander McDonald is speaking to catering now."

She didn't slow down at all. "I know, Sarn. I've got a couple of thoughts of my own to add to the menu."

Sarn was curious. Out of all of her new crewmates, Alix was the one who she knew the best. They spent a lot of time together off duty, and Sarn knew quite well the girl's likes and dislikes, and the way her mind worked. They'd shared a few meals together, and Sarn had often been surprised by the kinds of food the woman would happily shovel down her throat. She wondered how important it was to the captain for this meal to succeed, and how wise it might be to let Alix get any more involved than eat it. Even that might be a bit much, Sarn supposed – the girl's table manners left a lot to be desired.

"Alix…"

"Sorry, Sarn, but I gotta run. Later." She disappeared into a turbolift and was gone before Sarn could remind her that she was a lieutenant commander, that she outranked the helmsman, and that if she wanted to talk then Alix could damned well stand there and listen for as long as it took.

Of course, knowing Alix as she did, Sarn was pretty sure that any such comments would have fallen on deaf ears, anyway. The girl only heard what she wanted to hear, only did what she wanted to do.

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Vicki McDonald was having a hard time explaining to McDuff, the ship's senior chef, what it was that she wanted his galley to do. She had thought that the concept of a dinner party was a simple enough one, but apparently it was something that McDuff at least had never heard of in his life, and he had stared wide-eyed at the list of dishes she had given to him to make up.

"What the bloody hell does the captain want with all this bloody food?"

"The captain is inviting Mr. Harrow, his staff, and the two Klingons to dinner."

"From the looks of this list I'd say he's inviting half the bloody fleet to dinner. Christ, you could feed the crew with half of this."

"We're not asking for big dishes, Chef. A wide selection of small things, so that people can pick and choose."

"Small? Oh, aye. And just where the hell am I going to find a small goose? Small. Pfft!"

_And I thought Nain was difficult_, reflected McDonald. She had expected something like this from her previous dealings with ship's cooks – she had never encountered one who wasn't a trial. Even with her past experiences, and the chef on the _Gallant_ had been a real pain, she hadn't quite been prepared for this level of stubbornness. She could have reprimanded the man, but there was no point, and even McDonald knew that. An officer's powers on a starship were vast indeed, but somehow they failed to encompass the galley.

She tried to be reasonable instead. "These are Klingons we're inviting, Mr. McDuff. They are used to big meals, and the captain wants to impress them with a feast."

"Aye, I understand. But this isn't just a dinner. This is a bloody Tudor feast!"

"A what?"

"Tudor. One of the families that wore the English crown for a time. King Henry VIII, a Tudor, was notorious for his extravagant feasts: tables groaning under the weight of multiple oxen, pigs, and geese."

"I didn't realize you were a historian, Lieutenant."

"I read a lot. Anything I can get my hands on."

_Pity you've never read the regulation manual._ The thought popped into McDonald's head of its own accord, and at another time it might have popped out of her mouth, too. This time, in her mind was where it stayed, a token gesture towards unity between the officers, and McDonald was grateful that it was made, for a moment later the Scottish chef turned his attention to Alix.

"Great. Maybe you can read a cookbook. Then you can give me a hand here in the kitchen, trying to prepare all these dishes the captain's demanding."

His aggressive tone had put McDonald off-guard when she was confronted by it. She was so unused to being spoken to in anything like that manner by Starfleet personnel that she had been stunned, and she had left it too long to make any kind of reproach. This insubordination to Alix was new, and she now had the perfect opportunity to drop the rulebook on McDuff from a great height.

Alix had other ideas.

"The skipper's not demanding anything. I am," said the girl kindly, but her eyes sought McDuff's and they were positively aflame. McDonald caught a glimpse, and it shocked her, but the chef took it full on; his skin paled until it matched his apron. "That's a hell of a frightening stare you've got there, Lieutenant," he said, when he'd regained the power of speech.

"You found that frightening?" She sounded surprised, and a trickle of laughter, faintly sadistic laughter, ran from her lips. "That was just a glance; not even any anger behind it. But if there isn't any food for this dinner – good food – I'll be happy to show you the full force of these red eyes of mine."

Threatening a shipmate on a Starfleet vessel was an offence, and even Nain had to know as much. McDonald would have been doing her duty if she had had Alix taken away by security and thrown in the brig, but she did no such thing. McDuff had been difficult with her, insubordinate even, and it was a little…gratifying to see him put in his place. Besides, what charge could she really bring to bear against Alix? Threatening to look at the chef? It sounded too ridiculous.

Anyway, the galley was outside the sphere of an officer's powers, as the commander reminded herself.

"I'll get right on it, Lieutenant. Although, seeing as it's short notice and everything, I can't promise miracles."

"Good food, Mr. McDuff."

"Aye aye, sir. I'll certainly do my best."

He turned to head back into the galley and make good on his word, but Alix stopped him. "There's one more thing that I want to add to the menu. Could you whip together a haggis?"

"Not a chance, sir. Don't have half the proper ingredients. But I can put together a facsimile so perfect my own grandmother couldn't tell the difference."

"Perfect. Thank you, Mr. McDuff."

The cook retreated into the kitchens, his private domain far from the reach of the officers – and especially that helmsman with the terrifying eyes. Alix smiled broadly, pleased with herself, and turned this expression on McDonald. Once again, the commander was surprised by just how much warmth there was in a happy Alix Nain. Her own mood, brought low by McDuff's stubbornness, was lifted up again, and she started to understand why the captain had fought so hard to hold onto his friend. Someone like that, who could pick you up with just a look when you were feeling low was valuable. That she could also fly a ship better than Hikaru Sulu in his youth, and put the fear of God into a man with a severe glance only made her more so.

"What are you doing down here, Nain? Shouldn't you be on the bridge?"

"The skipper and I kept talking after you left. I came down to add the haggis to the galley's list of chores, and to tell you what Will's decided for the dress code."

"Formal, I suppose?"

Alix briefly considered a sarcastic reply – something about grass skirts and Hawaiian shirts with a pineapple motif – but she reluctantly dismissed it. The first officer wasn't her usual stiff self at the moment, but she was still unlikely to be appreciative of Alix's particular breed of wit.

"Yup. Formal. Our guests can interpret that how they want to. For us, it means best duty uniforms. Will had been thinking about dress uniforms, but I thought that might be a bit too showy."

McDonald smiled, seeing entirely different motives at work in Nain. "Right. It had nothing to do with you not owning a dress uniform?"

"Nothing at all," grinned Alix conspiratorially.

The two officers walked away from the galley and headed back towards the turbolift. Once inside, McDonald was about to have the 'lift carry them up to the bridge when something made her hesitate. Even Alix, whom the commander still thought of as a little dim, would have used the comm if all she had to do was get the galley to prepare a haggis and tell the first officer of tonight's dress code.

"What else were you doing down here, Lieutenant?"

"Delivering invitations, actually. Will asked me to go door-to-door and invite Mr. Harrow and the others to this thing. Hey, would you come with me, Commander? No offence to Harrow, but I've met some diplomats who can be right bastards; get easily offended if they think they're not being shown the proper respect. An invite from the first officer might appease egos better than one from the lowly helmsman."

Her argument was sound, her logic valid, and yet McDonald did not believe a word of it. There was something sly in those red eyes. She wondered what Alix really wanted. Not that it much mattered, she told herself. Whatever the real reasons for wanting her presence, Alix had been right in saying that the invitations might be better coming from the ship's executive officer. "Maybe you're right. We'll make the calls together."

"Aye, sir."

The reason for Alix's little scheme might have been a mystery to McDonald, and it would have probably perplexed Will Drake as well, but Kana grasped it instantly. A nasty smile tugged at her lips as she turned towards her host and said: _"As a guess, Yeoman Hope will be invited to this party?"_

"_That's right."_

"_So that's why you're inflicting McDonald on us. You don't trust yourself to behave."_

"_No, I don't. I wish I could learn to listen to my head, rather than my hips, but I can't."_

"_You could always try ignoring them both and listening to me."_

"_Oh? And what advice might you have for me?"_

"_Right now, I'd advise that this turbolift is small, that it is unmonitored, and that a source of very great aggravation for us is within arm's length."_

"_Kana…"_

"_Just reach out, Alix. Wrap those soft hands of yours around her head and break her neck. I can take care of the rest."_

"_Kana!"_

The Destroyer shrugged, entirely unmollified. _"Just a suggestion."_

Deck eight, and the guest quarters. McDonald took the lead, Alix a step behind, and Kana loitering about as far back as she could. She didn't feel any guilt or shame about her dark talk in the turbolift, but she did feel angry at Alix for snapping at her quite like that. The human knew very well what she was like, and if Alix had been surprised that the Destroyer might suggest something mindlessly violent and evil then she was a fool. Kana had no time for fools.

Mr. Harrow had been relaxing in his cabin, enjoying the peace and quiet – so precious to him after weeks of round the clock negotiations with an awkward Klingon general; negotiations that had, despite what he might have hinted at to Drake, got exactly no where at all. He was delighted to be on the _Endeavour_, ecstatic to be away from the starbase and its only-too-familiar conference halls. He did not even resent his quarters, even though he was restricted to a bedroom, living room and bathroom, the biggest of these rooms smaller than the dining room in his suite on the starbase. There was ample enough space for one man, even a man as used to luxury as Harrow, and right now he was sprawled out on his sofa, enjoying the way the distant pulse of the ship's warp core travelled up through the deck plates and massaged his back.

The door chimed. Harrow rolled onto his side and resolved to ignore it, but at the second chime he was on his feet and pacing across the room. He was annoyed with the interruption, but he didn't let it show when he greeted Commander McDonald and the strange red haired helmswoman.

"Mr. Harrow, the captain has sent us to invite you and your party to dinner tonight in the captain's mess."

"Dinner?" Harrow laughed. "I'm sorry, it's just that was a completely unexpected offer. My sincerest thanks to Captain Drake for his courtesy. I assume that 'my party' includes General Kravft and Commander Grownel?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent, excellent. Yes, I can see how the captain's mind works, now. A brilliant idea; Klingons love a good meal. I should have thought of it myself!" He laughed again. "Your captain has a sharp head on his shoulders. Yes, yes. My sincerest thanks to Captain Drake –"

"_You've already said that, fool."_

"– and what should I wear?"

"The event is to be semi-formal," said McDonald. "Ship's company will be attending in best duty uniform."

"Even me," put in a smiling Nain.

"For yourself, sir, whatever you feel is appropriate for such an occasion."

"Thank you, Commander. I'll dig through my drawers for something presentable. Are you extending this invitation to General Kravft personally, or am I to do that?"

"It's the ship's invitation, so we'll take care of it."

"Of course, of course. Thank you, Commander. Thank you too, Lieutenant."

"No problem," said Alix, tapping a finger to her head: a semi-formal salute.

"Oh, one last thing."

"Yes, sir?"

"What time is this meal?"

McDonald felt a flush of embarrassment, but Alix – who knew they had forgotten something – stepped in smoothly with the answer. "Seven o'clock," she said, opting for the civilian method of time measurement. "One of the crew will call on you and escort you up to the dining room."

"Thank you. Much obliged."

Hope and Ling happily accepted the invitation to dine. The yeoman in particular seemed to be thrilled beyond words at the prospect of sitting at the captain's table, and neither Alix nor McDonald could claim to be untouched by her heartfelt gratitude. Ling's reaction was far more muted, and indeed it almost seemed that he considered it his right to be the captain's guest. He didn't say anything aloud, and neither did he breathe a word of his disgust with regards to Nain's earlier treatment of him, but McDonald understood both loud and clear.

"What did you do to him?" The commander asked, as they took the short walk down to where the Klingons were.

"Just gave him a stare."

Hellish red eyes came into McDonald's mind, a memory of that terrifying look Alix had shown to McDuff in the galley, and she nodded mutely. Ling was a proud and difficult man, she had realized that instantly. No doubt Alix's sharp stare had frightened him (how could it not?) and he had shrunk away from her, but now he had recovered from it and he felt that his pride had been stung. He would have liked to reproach her, liked to have had Alix punished for her transgression, but the truth of the matter was that she hadn't done anything punishable. He knew it, and that irked him all the more. She had attacked him, made him looked weak and foolish, and she had gotten away with it, too.

The first officer supposed that she could mollify Ling's feelings a bit by taking Alix off to one side, having a quiet word with her, and then sending her back to apologise to the aide, but she decided nah, stuff it. She'd met people like Ling in the past, and keeping them happy was nearly impossible, emotionally and physically draining, and always ensured that she was unhappy. If Alix wanted to cast a glower the man's way every now and then, so long as it shut him up for a while, that was fine with the first officer.

It wasn't exactly regulation, but there were times when even McDonald was prepared to ignore the rulebook.

She tapped the door chime outside the Klingon leader's room and waited a moment. The door opened and she launched straight into what she had to say. "General Kravft, Captain Drake sends his compliments and invites you to dine in the captain's mess, tonight at nineteen-hundred hours."

"I would be most happy to accept the captain's gracious invitation."

"A crewman will escort you up at the appropriate time." They turned to depart.

"Destroyer." Alix looked back. "Will you be attending?"

"All of the officers, Mr. Harrow and his aides will be at the dinner."

Kravft nodded, giving no indication whether he considered this to be a good thing or a bad thing, and went back inside his cabin. Alix frowned for a moment, before deciding that she couldn't be bothered to debate what the general might be thinking, and returned to McDonald.

The first officer was studying her with curiosity, and Alix just knew there were going to be questions. She wasn't at all surprised when the commander opened her mouth and said, "Why does he call you Destroyer?"

"Old nickname from my privateering days."

"_No it's not. It's _my_ title. And I do resent the way you've gone and taken it to use as your own."_

"_Friends share, Kana."_

"Why Destroyer, though?"

Alix smiled secretively. "Long story, Commander."

Commander Grownel listened to the offer, gave the acceptance that was expected of him, and then began to complain. "Why have you locked us in these rooms, Commander? Are we prisoners on your ship?"

"You're not a prisoner, sir; you are our guest."

"Guests. Pah! We are under guard, confined to these cabins. No better than prisoners."

"You are not under confinement, and the guards are there for your own protection, sir. You're free to leave your quarters at any time, and security will escort you wherever you want to go. You are a guest," McDonald repeated again, emphatically.

Grownel grunted. "I was not 'guarded' aboard the starbase."

"This isn't the starbase."

"Lieutenant!"

McDonald was ignored. "Different commanders have different ways of doing things. The captain thought if for the best if you had an escort while you were aboard the ship."

"Pah! Drake does not trust us."

"On the contrary. There is no one more trusting, or more committed to the peace process than Captain Drake. He just doesn't want there to be an incident on his ship."

"An incident?"

"There are still hard feelings between our peoples, despite the progress that we have made," McDonald said, not trusting Alix's diplomatic skills to be sufficient to handle a subject so delicate. "The Endeavours are a good body of people, but we just want to make absolutely certain that no unpleasantness should develop."

"I see." The Klingon pondered. "So long as I am accompanied, I may go where I wish?"

"Yes."

"Except restricted sections, obviously," added Alix.

Grownel looked at her strangely, and for a second McDonald feared that the Klingon might be getting angry with the helmsman. He surprised her. "Since I must be accompanied, perhaps you would take the role of my escort, Destroyer?"

Alix looked at the first officer, obviously unsure. Strange request for the Klingon to make, McDonald thought. On the strength of keeping their guests happy, the Commander was inclined to grant it. Alix seemed to sense this opinion in McDonald and she hastily said: "I'm on duty, Commander. There are still four hours to go of my shift."

"Then I shall wait."

"_He's insistent."_

"_Yeah. Why, though? I've never met him before."_

"_Maybe Daddy's been telling tales?"_

Alix frowned. _"Daddy?"_ She muttered in her mind, while aloud she said: "In that case, I'll be happy to escort you – after my shift is over."

"I look forward to it, Destroyer."

"Commander," said Alix as they walked away, "I don't mind saying that I'm a little…uncomfortable." Despite her words, she obviously minded saying it a great deal.

"Grownel's interest in you?" Guessed McDonald.

"Yeah," she nodded. "From Kravft I'd understand it: we've met before. I'd never seen or heard of Grownel before we started this mission, and I don't like how interested he seems to be in me."

"If you're concerned you don't have to accompany him. Someone else could do the job. Wolf, for example."

Alix shook her head. "I appreciate the offer, sir, but I've already told him that I'll meet him, and Klingons get easily offended. I'm not really worried as such, sir. Not about my safety, anyway. I'm worried that…" She trailed off.

"_You? Worried?"_ Kana's eyes were wide, amazed by the very idea, and even more so because her host seemed entirely honest in what she said.

"Worried about what, Lieutenant?"

"That he might have heard stories about me," Alix admitted. "That he might want to test and see if they're true."

McDonald, who had heard stories about Alix as well – some from rather unreliable sources; others from Drake, who would certainly know the truth – had an idea what about Alix might interest a Klingon warrior. "They're not?"

"They are. That's the problem."

"_Only a problem for everyone else."_

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Time drifted along its course and the _Endeavour_ on hers. On the bridge, Alix held her place at helm and watched the light years tick slowly by on her panel. Now and then she was obliged to tap a button or two to nudge the ship around a planetary body, or subspace phenomenon, but for the most part there was nothing for her to do while the ship was at warp. The computer could handle all of the light manoeuvres required to get the ship from point A to point B along a relatively straight line; the only reason a living helmsman was needed on the bridge at all during warp flight was in case of some drastic, unexpected development – a subspace disturbance forming nearby, the sudden appearance of a spatial anomaly, or an enemy ship. Such things were incredibly rare events, much more so than the writers of the fictional starship stories that were so popular amongst civilians made them out to be.

As with every other helmsman in the fleet, Alix had long ago constructed ways of amusing herself while on duty: little games that she could play that kept her mind from falling asleep. Her favourite was teasing Brok, a game with endless potential. During more relaxed periods, she would happily engage in some banter with the big dumb Bolian, and the ensuing war of insults would keep herself and the rest of the bridge amused. With McDonald currently holding the centre chair verbal sparring was not an option, but there were other ways of getting enjoyment out of the Bolian.

Today, Alix had a reluctant associate in her teasing, and she was grateful for it. She had written a neat little program that let her (or any other) change the torpedo inventory display on Brok's terminal – only on Brok's terminal, this was a practical joke to wind the Bolian up, not anything malicious. One of her favourite teases was that Brok was paid to sit on the bridge and make sure that none of the ship's torpedoes walked off and got themselves lost – a comment that always ensured a good funny sneer from him. Now, thanks to this little program, she could make it seem that the torpedoes _were_ walking away of their own accord.

The results were as hilarious as Alix had predicted. Brok hadn't noticed at first that the count on his screen was going down – which showed how much attention he paid to his job, Alix thought – but after six torpedoes had vanished he suddenly woke up to the fact that something was going on. At first he had been panicked, but when two more disappeared while he was watching he smelt a rat.

Brok's first accusation had been bang on target. Not wanting to make a scene on the bridge – and knowing that McDonald would probably flay Alix alive for what was really a harmless little joke – he had made his way over to the helm, leant across Alix's shoulder as though he wanted to check something on her boards, and told her to stop it. Alix had thrown an innocent expression at him, and when Brok had explained that he got the joke – ha, ha, very droll – she had assured him that she was running no such program, and had let him inspect her console to be sure of the fact. Brok had found everything as it should be, except for a rough portrait of herself that Alix had been drawing on her starchart by plotting nav points and connecting them with lines. Perplexed, he had returned to his station.

If he had leant across the shoulder of Alix's neighbour he would have discovered the culprit. Alix had given Hannah Wolf the program to run from her navigation console. The security officer had been reluctant, but Alix had assured her that it would be a laugh, and something about the girl's eagerness and enthusiasm had made it hard for Wolf to say no.

She did not have much of a sense of humour, Wolf, couldn't really understand humour, but she did derive some…pleasure from Brok's and Alix's antics, so she had agreed to do this. Alix had been right, it had been interesting. Even now, Brok had no idea who had pulled the prank on him, and although they had long since switched off the program, the Bolian was still paying rapt attention to his screens, just to make sure that nothing else odd happened.

Alix yawned and stretched in her seat. Time was ticking on; there were just a handful of minutes left until the end of her shift. Normally, she would look forward eagerly to the end, to having a few hours to herself to do what she wanted, where she wanted. She tolerated the monotony on the bridge as best as she was able, but she had always been an active, adventurous individual, and sitting around idly for hours was difficult for her. In this respect, as in so many others, she was entirely unsuited for Starfleet life – which was long periods of boredom, interspersed with moments of heart-stopping terror. She had known as much since a young age, and she would never have been drawn into the service, nor stayed in it, if it hadn't been for Drake. For him, and only for him, was she prepared to at least make an effort towards towing the line.

She needed her freedom; she needed her off duty time. More than anyone else, it was vital for Alix to throw off her uniform and indulge in her pastimes. Especially as Kana was no more patient towards inaction than she was, and the Destroyer lacked Alix's devoted loyalty to Drake. For this reason, a good portion of Alix's free time was given over to Kana, so that the alien could enjoy herself.

Today, with the promise she had made to Grownel, and the dinner party in the evening, Alix feared that Kana was going to have very little to be happy about. There would be no opportunity to leave the ship and blip over to one of the more dangerous, exciting parts of the cosmos for a few hours of hectic fun; even a couple of hours wiping the floor with wrestling partners in the gym was probably out of the question.

"_Today's going to be very boring for you,"_ apologized Alix.

"_Oh?"_ Kana looked up from what she had been doing and showed Alix her teeth – to call her expression a smile would have been too generous. _"I doubt I'll be bored. There may not be much chance of bloodshed and fun, but I think things will be interesting enough."_

"_I hate it when you say things like that."_

"_Why?"_

"_Well, the last time you made that sort of prophecy I found myself mixed up with those Orion treasure-hunters: Habrig and his lot."_

Kana laughed fondly at the memory. _"That was interesting! Fun, too."_

"_We nearly died."_

"_That happens to us a lot."_

"_True. You're a bad influence."_

Kana huffed. _"I'm a bad influence? You don't need me to be a bad influence. As I recall, you've got into plenty of scrapes without me."_

"Alix? Why are you smiling?"

"Just remembering a joke I heard," she told Wolf. The security officer looked at her strangely for a moment longer, before turning back to her boards, a mutter escaping under her breath – something that sounded like "Humans."

"_Yes. What strange creatures they are,"_ agreed Kana – whose senses were probably the best on the ship; certainly the most advanced. _"I've lived inside this one for more than twenty years, and she's still a puzzle to me. The race as a whole is an even greater mystery. How such primitive, unevolved beasts ever mastered flight, let alone warp propulsion is a question I will never answer. And how they went from blowing themselves up on one miserable little planet to policing ten thousand light years…the mind boggles."_

"_Ahem,"_ coughed Alix. _"And just which primitive, unevolved beast are you living in now, Kana?" _The Destroyer grinned, pleased with her teasing. _"We haven't done so badly, we primates."_

"_I didn't say primates. Although, it's not a bad term."_

"_What –"_ Alix twigged. _"You're winding me up."_

"_Indeed I am."_

"_This is why I hate you."_

Kana didn't believe a word of it. _"You love me really."_

Alix did indeed. Kana was the person she was closed to – literally and figuratively. She was Alix's best friend, mentor, protector, and the only real family the girl had ever known – her parents having been killed as part of a landing party when she had been very young. She loved Kana immensely, but it was equally true that she hated the creature – hated certain things about her, anyway: her deeply ingrained, irredeemable evil, for one.

The turbolifts opened, both at more or less the same time, and a wave of fresh hands poured out onto the bridge, led by Lieutenant Adam Claise, commander of the night shift. He was, Alix had heard, an attractive young man, and she knew a couple of crewmen who had their eyes on him. Glancing over her shoulder, taking in his square form, silky hair and kind brown eyes, Alix supposed that he was an okay enough example of a human male, but she felt nothing stir in her, no pull of attraction. She was a great admirer of beauty, in particular bodily beauty, and while she found no man physically attractive she had met one or two whom she considered to be beautiful. Claise was not such a man, and she wondered what Pini and the others found so damned appealing.

"Day shift is relieved," said Claise and Pini, over at Science II, melted. Alix rolled her eyes in disbelief. There was nothing remarkable about the way Claise spoke. He did not have a big voice like Kravft did, that made each word he uttered sound like a godly proclamation. Neither did he possess Drake's warm and friendly, yet powerful, firm, way of speaking. Claise just…spoke, as far as Alix could tell.

"_What do people see in him?"_

"_You're hardly qualified to speak on the attractiveness of men."_

Alix gave her friend a look. _"All right. You've shagged more than a few. Find him cute?"_

"_No."_

The Nains were not alone in their opinion. Commander McDonald greeted Claise with a polite smile and a few words, but there was nothing in her body language or expression that suggested she was drawn towards the man. Similarly, Lieutenant Wolf was entirely unaffected by whatever magnetism Claise possessed.

Not that that was an uncommon occurrence in itself. Wolf was the most frigid person whom Alix had ever met – disappointingly so, actually, as Alix couldn't deny a certain interest in the predator woman. It was an interest that Wolf certainly did not return, nor did she seem to find _anyone_, of any species or gender, appealing. Alix had seen her look straight through men and women that the helmsman would have pursued without any reaction at all.

Oh, well. Her loss was Alix's view.

The day shift filed away into the turbolifts, their night side counterparts slipping in to take their places. The helmsman muttered a few things to her replacement about the ion storm ahead, pulled the data chip with her program from Wolf's terminal, and flicked it across the bridge to Brok. He caught the chip, looked at it once, then at her, and his expression made Alix roar with laughter.

"I knew it was you!"

"Not just me," said Alix, holding up a finger. "I just wrote the hack, Wolf ran it."

"Wolf?"

The security officer shrugged. "She said it would be funny."

Until now, the mirth had been restricted to the two women at flight control. Now, although they had no idea of the particulars of the joke, both the day and night bridge watches knew that another prank had been played on Brok, and some laughter was circling.

Alix joined in for a while, before turning serious again and saying quietly to Brok. "That's the only copy of the program, and I've included a few suggestions for improvements to the security protocols to plug the holes I took advantage of."

He pocketed the chip and nodded. "Understood." This wasn't the first time that Alix had played a joke using the ship's computer, and every time after she'd had her fun she'd surrender her hacks and point out how she'd got them to work. In some respects, it was good for the ship that Alix liked to wind up Brok so, and that she had a sense of fair play; slowly but surely, all of the weaknesses in the security software were being identified and weeded out.

Her fun over, Alix drifted over to where Sarn was waiting for a 'lift.

"Hey."

"Alix."

"Are you busy? It's just I've got to play Grownel's bodyguard, and I was thinking that some company would be nice."

A flash of intense, irrational hatred shot through Sarn's deep, dark eyes at the sound of the Klingon's name, but before Alix was really aware of it it had passed, and the Vulcan was saying: "I am afraid that I'm needed in the science lab, Alix."

"Oh. No…no problem. Wolf, you busy?"

"No."

"Great," she said, bundling Wolf into the turbolift before she could change her mind. "I've just got to swing by my cabin first and grab something. I'll meet up with you and Grownel. Take him wherever he wants to go – I'll find you."

"Aye, Lieutenant."

"We're off duty," laughed the girl. "You don't have to say 'aye'. And never call me 'Lieutenant'. Titles make my skin crawl. I'm Alix."

"Alex," said Wolf.

"No." A chuckle. "Alix. Not Al-ex, Al-ix."

"Alix," tried Wolf again. She did not feel embarrassed about her mistake – such a complex emotion was beyond her abilities – but she did feel foolish. She had the sharpest ears on the ship; she should have been able to distinguish the difference in the sound of the helmsman's name and the common name Alex.

The oddly-named girl got out of the turbolift on deck five and headed off towards her quarters. Outwardly at least she appeared normal and cheery, but beneath the surface she was upset. Sarn's refusal had stung, especially as Alix knew for a fact that she was not at all busy; a lifetime of lying made Alix quite an expert at detecting falsehood in others. That brief flash in the Vulcan's eyes had told her the real truth.

So Sarn didn't want to be around the Klingons? She hated Klingons with a passion? That was fine; Alix did not care in the slightest. She had spent all of her life with a creature that hated, so a display of fiery passion had little to no affect on her. What did trouble her was falseness. She was strangely sensitive about being lied to. Perhaps this was hypocritical of her, as her lying was near-constant, but it was the way she was. She liked Sarn a great deal, and that made the lie sting all the more.

She determined not to think about it, but as with most people just making that decision guaranteed that she would be able to think about nothing else. She might be host to a godlike alien, but she was still only human.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Hannah Wolf, despite her name and despite what a casual glance might suggest, was not human. She was _nearly_ human, very close to being human, but human she was not. Neither was she really an alien, as to be an alien she would have to belong to a race that lived beneath some distant sun. She did not. She was, to the best of her knowledge, unique. This was not because the rest of her kind had been lost or wiped out, but because she was the only successful experiment.

Wolf was genetically engineered, created by a group of radical scientists fascinated by the possibilities of the human form, and inspired by the early 'genetic supermen', most famously Khan Noonien Singh. They had sought to create a super solider, a killing machine in human form. Wolf was the result of their endeavours.

A successful experiment; far too successful for the scientists who had created her. After butchering her creators, Wolf had found her way into space. She wasn't particularly bright, but she had an instinctive feel for where she was in three-dimensional space, and her keen tracking senses seemed to extend into the deep night, making her a natural navigator.

She had been created to be a pack animal, and she couldn't function alone. She searched desperately for a pack, and, being amazingly naïve and easily misled, Wolf found herself drawn into a pirate crew, her strength often put to use in ripping apart the crew of her cohorts' victim. She made her 'pack' exceedingly wealthy, and spilled gallons of innocent blood.

Eventually, Starfleet got wind of what was happening to civilian shipping, and the _Endeavour_ was dispatched to put a stop to things. Drake smashed the pirates, and rescued the frightened and confused Wolf. She soon enough came to understand that what she had been doing up till now was wrong, and while she felt no guilt (it was beyond her simple mind) she developed the opinion that Starfleet was her new pack.

After serving on a couple of ships, Wolf now found herself back where it had all started, back aboard the _Endeavour_. She was too stupid to have noticed how uncomfortable her old shipmates had been around her on those other posts, or how distant some of the new ones were. She was aware that there were people who were afraid of her – she could smell the oily film of terror on them – but she understood that to be a natural human reaction to meeting something stronger than oneself.

Except…except there was no fear in Drake, and she was certainly stronger than the captain. He was not afraid of her. Neither was Alix, and that tiny little girl had to be one of the weakest people on the ship. Clever, self-confident and resourceful, yes, but not strong. She didn't understand why those two didn't fear her; it puzzled her greatly. The weak always feared the strong. Drake was comfortable because he believed himself to be in control of this beast; and he was right, to a certain extent; but Alix…why wasn't she afraid?

Unlike the block of dark-brown Klingon muscle that opened the door to her now. Here was strength! Wolf's eyes instinctively swept over his solid body, inspecting his bulging muscles, estimating the strength in them, the power he could put behind his blows. There was nothing mathematical about her calculations, they were all the product of instincts and gut feelings, but they were wholly accurate. She knew that she could take the Klingon.

She also knew that the carcass would keep her happily fed for a week or more. Her instincts were those of a predator's, and she initially gauged people by how strong they were, and how much of a meal they would make. The rest came later.

The Klingon looked at her, saw a tall human female with dark blond hair and bright blue eyes, and was thoroughly unimpressed. "What do you want?"

"I'm Lieutenant Wolf. I am to be your escort."

He scowled angrily. "Where is the Destroyer?"

"Alix Nain?"

"That is she."

"Lieutenant Nain is getting something from her quarters. She will meet us."

This 'Destroyer' thing confused Wolf. She had heard humans called by all kinds of bizarre names before – one of the pirates she had worked with had been known as 'Saw'. There was generally a reason behind these nicknames, as there had been in Saw's case, but she struggled to think of a reason why anyone might call their helmsman Destroyer. It was a powerful, dangerous name, one that might better suit Wolf than it did the soft, smiley girl.

Maybe she should ask Alix about it, Wolf supposed. Yes, that was an idea – a good idea! She congratulated herself. Alix would explain everything.

"Very well," Grownel reluctantly accepted.

"Where would you like to go?"

Grownel's _bat'leth_ appeared in his hands as if by magic, a crescent-shaped Klingon sword that was wielded with two hands. "My blade grows thirsty. Where might a warrior go on this ship to hone his skills?"

"The gymnasium is on deck eleven."

"Lead me there."

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"It's a beautiful piece of code," Chief Engineer Horris Fran said, pushing himself away from the computer console and returning his reading glasses to the breast pocket of his lab coat. His vision was pretty much perfect, but words on a screen were a blur to him – although, oddly enough, he could read them well enough if they were printed on paper. Doctor Ilerson had suggested a surgery that could correct for this defect in his vision, but Fran had refused; he was quite happy with his glasses.

"It's annoying," Brok said. "I thought we had made the system tamper-proof."

"So did I; but there it is, tampered with again. You see how she did it? It really is a beautiful piece of work: no wonder the fault-finding software didn't pick it up." He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his bony nose. "We close one backdoor into the system, and we open up two more."

"The suggestions she made…"

"Will plug the leaks, sure. But since she suggested them I'm willing to bet she's already worked out ways around them." Fran sighed again. "This makes, what? Five pranks she's pulled with the computer?"

"Six, if you count resetting my alarm clock by remote."

He pushed himself away from the console, rose, and stared across the cavernous engine room to where the ship's warp core stood; a tall, tubular structure that pulsed with light at steady intervals, streams of matter and antimatter, regulated by a dilithium crystal, reacted within to release the tremendous energies needed to warp the starship across space. Usually the sight of _Endeavour_'s beating heart soothed Fran's nerves, but right now it did no such thing.

"She should come and work for me in engineering; I could use someone with her computer-skills. All right…I'll pass these notes along to my boys and see what they can come up with."

"Thanks, Chief."

Brok started to make his way out of the engine room, but Fran wasn't quite finished yet and the sound of the engineer's voice made him stop. "You know, this worries me a great deal."

He turned back. "Worries?" Alix had played some jokes, yes, but they had hardly been anything that put the ship or the crew at risk: just things that caused his blood pressure to shoot up. He didn't see what the chief was so concerned about.

"Worries," said Fran, absolutely no humour on his face. "Look at the brilliance of these 'pranks', Lieutenant; so well hidden that we'd probably have never found them if she hadn't led us to them. Now, tell me what she could be capable of if she put real malice behind her efforts."

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By the time Alix reached the gym there were a lot of wounded crewmen waiting for her. Grownel was on the fencing strips, and having challenged and defeated everyone who could lift a blade, he was feeling pretty cocky.

"Human warriors. Pah!" His laughter bellowed. "There is no such thing! Not one of you is fit to fight a Klingon child. The 'mighty' _Endeavour_. Ha! I fear for the Empire if we are to look to you as allies in the future!"

"_The perfect excuse, Alix. Draw your swords and skewer that posturing fool!"_

"_I thought I might."_

Beaten and wounded as they were, there wasn't an Endeavour in the room who wasn't on his or her feet instantly, ready to take on the Klingon again and make him regret those words. The honour of the ship, of the whole Federation, had been insulted, and no one was about to stand for that!

The Klingon laughed again. "You people would dare to stand against me again? After I cut you down to easily? Ha, ha, ha! Are you stupid, as well as weak?"

"Try us!" Shouted Ensign Arlen Sign. He was an old Endeavour, one who had been with the ship during the last commission, and Grownel's dig at his ship had hit a nerve.

Alix prowled forward and sung out: "You've had your turn, Arlen. Let me have some fun."

"Aye aye, ma'am." Sign grinned from ear to ear. Now that Klingon bastard was going to get his just deserts. He'd been with Nain during the capture of an Orion slave ship, and he'd seen how savagely the woman fought in close-quarters, and how flawlessly she wielded her swords. Grownel was going to lose some blood.

"How about it, Grownel?" Asked Alix, facing off against him with her hands in her pockets and a cocky smile on her lips. "Fancy some sport?"

It was a pretty ridiculous pairing. Alix wasn't even five and a half feet and she was lanky; the Klingon was closer to six and a half and he bulged with muscle.

"The General speaks very highly of your swordsmanship, Destroyer," said Grownel, shifting his grip on his _bat'leth_ so that it was comfortable. He took a step towards her; his curved blade slicing through the air in a rapid pattern of cuts and slashes. A smirk. "I shall enjoy testing it."

"_If that's the best he's got, you won't need me."_

"_Maybe not. But how about a little humiliation before we get down to the actual duelling?"_

A wicked gleam of humour passed through Kana's illuminated eyes. _"I love the way your mind works!"_

"_He did insult the ship. Can't have that. Make him look foolish, Kana."_

"_He already does. But I'm sure I can add to it,"_ she promised.

The Change swept through them both, a rush of heat that flowed through their shared body, carrying their spirits along like driftwood in a current. Alix felt her body fall away from her, felt all sensations of weight and pressure leave her. She could no longer feel a heartbeat in her chest or any weight on her feet, and while she could look down at her body and see it all there, there was no sensation of air moving across her skin, no taste on her tongue, nothing to smell. Turning her head to the left, she could see her own body – her physical body – now under the control of Kana the Destroyer, while she had assumed Kana's usual role of ghostly companion.

The Change: the secret to the successful and happy relationship between the two Nain spirits, as well as some of their extraordinary success in private adventuring. It had taken them years to develop the technique, a lifetime to master it. Every time it seemed to get a little easier: whether that was just the result of practice, or something else, neither of them chose to deliberate.

To an outside observer, there was nothing remarkable, nothing even noticeable about the Change. There was no great explosion of light and sound; she didn't float into the air and radiate brilliance in all directions; neither did her body transform into the more ghoulish image of her other self; to anyone else, it simply appeared that Nain had stopped for a moment to clear her mind – which was very true. The only visible affect of the Change was the faint light that swelled in the back of Nain's eyes when they opened again, and that was too dim to be really noticeable unless one knew to look for it there.

At least, that was the only physical affect. Kana's personality was utterly different to Alix's. Kana was a seething caldron of negative emotions; even when she was smiling anger was never far from the surface. She stood much more tightly than Alix, her limbs clenched and ready to strike, her face fixed in an expression of distaste and annoyance, her horrible eyes slits through which hatred and evil blazed.

But this wasn't a really noticeable difference, and it certainly wasn't something that would make someone immediately think: 'That girl's got a demon living inside her.' Most people just figured it was Alix getting very angry; focusing her rage.

Silently, Kana fetched her swords from Alix's duffle bag, shrugged off her jacket, and approached Grownel. She and her host were both ambidextrous, and Kana had trained Alix extensively in dual-weapon fighting techniques – they being her own personal favourite. The blades that she held now were a pair of elegant longswords that Alix had picked up from an Andorian weaponsmith some years ago. They were beautiful swords: perfectly balanced, and fitted with deadly sharp, nearly indestructible diamond blades.

"_En garde_!" Cried Kana, raising her weapons, one held across her chest ready to block with, the other high and poised for a slashing attack.

"What?"

"It's a challenge, fool. It means prepare to fight. And in your case, prepare to lose!"

Kana loved to taunt her foes. She loved to tease and torment her opponents with words before and during the fight: then to utterly decimate them with her swords. She drew out her victim's suffering, toyed with them until the last, savouring every moment, and unless Alix instructed her to play down her skills (usually so that any audience there might be would believe that it was still Alix fighting) she would never give her opponent an opening, crush them utterly, let them see perfectly how weak and pathetic they were, how utterly hopeless they were next to her.

In this case, her taunting served another purpose than to just amuse her. It set Grownel's blood boiling – the audacity of a human girl talking to him like that! – and he sprung at her roaring, his blade striking down and spittle flying from his lips.

Kana laughed and darted forward herself, meeting the Klingon in mid-attack. She came at him faster than he would have given her credit for, and he faintly perceived a flash as her right sword reached for his chest, before she spun away, a neat step that took her out of his path and out of his reach. His attack had missed, but so had hers, if she had launched one – Grownel could tell that he had not been cut.

He turned on her again, growled and sprang. Kana's foot came up and caught him in the top of his chest, just below his throat, sending him to the floor. His hands clapped down either side of him, arresting his fall, and it was only then that Grownel realized that he was no longer holding his _bat'leth_.

The crescent shaped blade was in Nain's possession, the sword in her right hand slipped neatly through the middle of the three handholds. She had stabbed the blade there when she had counterattacked that first time, and her departing spin had torn the weapon from the Klingon's hands. He had still been so mad at her insulting, so convinced that his lunge would end with his blade buried deep in her chest, that he hadn't even noticed the theft.

"You might want this. Difficult to fight without one."

"Return my blade!"

Kana appeared to mull it over. "No. I think I'd rather keep it."

Grownel surged to his feet and threw himself at Nain, sweeping a huge fist at the girl. Against Alix, this sudden burst of speed and fury might have had better results, as he did come barrelling at her at a ferocious rate, and she was only human. The Destroyer, on the other hand, was not, and to her Grownel appeared to be moving at a very leisurely pace indeed. She ducked under the blow and swept Grownel's legs out from beneath him. As he went down, her left-hand sword traced a line of pink across his chest.

"First blood!" Cried Kana.

She stepped away and gave Grownel time to rise to his feet. There was a lazy casualness in the way that she moved that told everyone who cared to look how little a threat she considered this Klingon to be. She was loudly announcing to everyone that she was playing with Grownel, that she could wipe him out at any time that she pleased.

"Klingon warrior," she snorted, observing him with disdain. Laughter accompanied her words. "Mighty fighter, indeed. You owe my shipmates an apology."

"Never!"

He came at her again, having learnt nothing from his previous failed attacks. Speed and brute strength would bring this human down, he was sure of that. Speed and strength solved everything!

The inhuman Kana hit him in the face with the hilt of her sword, and while he was reeling from that she curled around his body and took out his knees with a sharp kick. Grownel feel onto all fours, howling from a mixture of pain and rage. The Destroyer could have knocked him flat with a kick to his chest, or rendered him unconscious by a blow to the head, but she had another idea. Her lithe body wrapped around Grownel, pinning him against her, immobile. The blade of her right hand sword lay against the main artery in his throat, her lips by his left ear. "Apologise," she whispered, "or you are a dead a man!"

Death was not much of a threat when it came to Klingons, as Kana knew very well. All Klingons dreamed of dying in glorious battle – for such was the only way to guarantee a place in Sto'Vo'Kor, the afterlife for the honoured dead. Alix had said that she found the idea kind of cute, very much like the old Viking belief of a great reward for those who died fighting. Kana thought it stupid, pathetic, and utterly laughable, but she knew how to use it to her advantage.

"There is no honour in this death."

There wasn't at that, Grownel realized. Being killed by Nain…that was no dishonour, even if she was human – she was fast, strong, and supernaturally gifted. No, the dishonour was in being killed like this, helpless: execution, not death in battle.

"I was mistaken," he gasped, each word harder to say than the last. "There are human warriors."

Kana chuckled and stepped away. She did not offer Grownel any help; let the Klingon get to his feet on his own. Once he was standing, she scooped up his _bat'leth_ from where it had fallen and tossed it to him. Hastily, he armed himself and stood ready for the next attack.

"_How do you want me to fight this, oh master general?"_

"_Beat him, but don't smash him. Make it look believable, Kana. Let him have a couple of pokes at you."_

"_Hmm."_

"_They don't have to connect."_

"_They won't."_

"Ready your sword, Klingon."

Grownel's attack was far more cautious this time. He closed in slowly, keeping a close eye on Kana for any early warning of a trick, testing her defences with a series of fast cuts all around her body – now low, now high, now centre torso, now high again. She blocked his every attack, her swords seeming to move casually slowly, yet always arriving in time to deflect his blade. One or two of his slices she parried, and followed up with a quick stab of her own, breaking the rhythm of his attack, but she seemed uninterested in launching a concerted offensive.

Opting for power again, Grownel determined to bash his way through Kana's defences, relying entirely on the established truth that Klingons were far stronger than humans. He threw another barrage of rapid attacks at her, driving her back a few steps, creating a gap between them big enough for him to make his lunge. He drew back his _bat'leth_ and put his full weight behind it as he threw it forward.

Kana wasn't there; the blade slashed through empty air. The Destroyer hadn't cheated, she hadn't used her power to slow time and give herself longer to react or to speed up her own movements – the Klingon's move had been so obvious that she hadn't needed to. Alix's human reactions were fast enough to dodge around the powerful thrust, so there was no need for Kana to augment her borrowed body with any of her power. It was entirely as a human that she fought now.

Grownel was off-balance, his attack having gone so horribly wrong. Worse, his opponent was no longer in front of him; his entire unprotected left was presented to her. Kana capitalized on this, launching a restrained offensive. Her blades slashed in rapid succession, ripping through Grownel's light leather armour and biting again and again into his flesh. Pink Klingon blood stained her diamond blades, and dripped onto the gym floor, but dripped was all it did, and had Kana really wanted to, she could have made it gush.

Recovered from his fumble, Grownel took advantage of an opening that Kana had presented him with and slashed at her right leg. The Destroyer had been gambling on exactly that move, and it sealed Grownel's defeat. Her left sword deflected the attack; the right slipped in and stabbed him in the chest, right in the heart.

"You're dead," said Kana merrily.

Grownel looked down at the blade that was pricking his chest. He had been cut, and there was blood, but he was in no life threatening danger, so long as the human did not lean in on her sword. "So it would appear."

Kana wiped off her blades and returned them to their scabbards, feeling pleased with herself, her bloodlust temporarily satisfied. Alix was watching her, a proud smile on her ghostly face. _"Nicely done. I don't think he's going to be shooting his mouth off again anytime soon."_

"_Certainly not while we're around."_

Alix shook her head. _"No. That was a precision attack, by the way. For an instant there, I thought you'd actually killed him."_

"_It was tempting. Must we swap back?"_

"_There's no great hurry. Enjoy yourself."_

Kana grinned and delighted in her freedom. There was nothing she loved more than being physical. Being a ghostly presence was entertaining enough for a short while – and Kana would never get tired of saying inappropriate things, exasperating Alix, and insulting people to their faces without their ever knowing about it – but the real delights were reserved for the physical. A spirit could not fight, or eat, or appreciate the tastes and smells of the world around it.

Kana, like her host, was a passionate creature, and as a spirit the only person that she could share these passions with were her host. Alix was a lot of fun, Kana would not deny that, but variety was the spice of life.

No chance for passion right now, but she couldn't hope for everything at once.

Grownel was looking at her, studying her; Kana could sense it. She turned back to look at him, and was surprised to see that the big Klingon was actually smiling. He seemed _pleased_ that she had beaten him. Why? Klingons were a proud people, and they hated to lose.

They loved a legend, though.

"You are as General Kravft said. You deserve to be the Destroyer."

"And don't you forget it!"

She left the Klingon where he was and walked over to where Wolf had been standing, watching. The genetically engineered woman wore a stupefied look that made Kana snicker.

"You look surprised."

"I…didn't know you could fight like that."

Kana shrugged. "I'm the Destroyer."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Kana Nain contemplated her appearance in the bathroom mirror. Grownel had decided to return to his quarters after his defeat in the gym – hiding his head in shame, was her opinion – and so she had free time on her hands. She had returned to her quarters to get changed, and having discarded her host's Starfleet uniform in favour of blood-coloured trousers, a vest, and a large cape, she felt more like her old self. Indeed, dressed in the dark red clothes, laced with gold, she _looked_ as much like herself as she possibly could without drawing on her powers. She and Alix were virtual twins, all of the major details of their bodies identical, but as Kana gazed upon her reflection she was irked by the imperfection: wrong colour skin, blunt teeth, her hair shorter and less spiky than she was used to…she looked more or less like herself, and it was the less that perturbed her.

"_Admiring yourself?"_ Alix queried, watching her alter ego. Her ghostly form did not reflect in the mirror, but Kana knew it to be a flawless copy of the body that she now commanded. Of course it was; after all, she was the one who conjured Alix's current form: it was her power that allowed the human's spirit to walk around, see, hear and talk like a real person.

"No. This," she said, running her hands down her chest, "is not me."

A brief surge of light, and the Destroyer flashed a grin at her host. "_This_ is me."

"_Lovely. Now change back. You can't go walking about the ship looking like that. They'll take one look at you and call security. And Brok'll never let me hear the end of it."_

"What's wrong with my appearance?"

"_Other than you look like death warmed up?"_

"Yes."

Alix laughed quietly. _"You don't get it, do you? The only humans that have skin as white as a corpse and sharpened teeth are very, very strange people indeed. And I don't want anyone to think that I'm one of them."_

Kana flashed those sharpened teeth and said, "Alix, you are a very, very strange person. You are host of the Destroyer; you have travelled farther and seen more in one lifetime than the rest of your species has in its entire existence; you are far from normal."

"_Thanks,"_ said Alix. _"I just adore being insulted by my alter ego."_

"I'm not your alter ego. You're mine."

The human blinked. _"Huh? Isn't that just being intentionally perverse?"_

"No, Alix, it's being precise. I can't be your alter ego; I was born billions of years before you; therefore, if we're counterparts, you must be mine, not the other way around."

"_Oh great. So you're not the devil on my shoulder, I'm the angel on yours?"_

Kana snorted derisively. "You're no angel, Alix, and you know it. There is darkness in you, too. We've both seen it."

The woman stared at her other self with cool eyes; eyes without their usual shine, without their lively gleam. When the passion faded out of Alix it was a sure sign that she was getting very angry. _"Thank you for reminding me."_

"Didn't like to hear that, did you?" Kana smirked. "Interesting. You're so keen to point out the evil in me, but you can't stand to hear that there's some in you, too."

"_There is darkness in the heart of every human being," _said Alix defensively.

"There is. Although –"

"_Don't say what you're thinking, Kana! Not if you want to keep control of that body."_

She was very strongly tempted to speak in spite of the threat, knowing how much enjoyment she would get from forcing Alix to confront the truth. However, she clamped her lips closed and allowed her physical form to take on the softer appearance of her host once more. It wasn't just Alix's threat that made her hold her tongue – although she couldn't claim that it had had no affect on her – but a kind of respect for her host. She had met many millions of people during her infinite life, and she had only ever respected one.

Walking somewhat at random, the Destroyer wandered into the ship's mess hall. There were clusters of men and women in uniform sat around tables, eating whatever it was that the galley had slopped up today – something Deltan, she guessed, from the strange colours of the meat and vegetables. Kana had been to Delta Four in the past, and she had not liked the people, the planet, the climate, or the food; so when a crewman approached her with a tray she needled him with the most terrifying look she had to hand; the man quickly got the hint and retreated, shivering. Alix, who had been following her demon around in moody silence, chose this moment to open her mouth again. _"If you can't pretend to be me, Kana, I'll take my body back."_

Kana bound over to a nearby table, throwing her arms wide and welcoming, grinning broadly. "Sarn, Blue, how good to see you. Well…maybe not you, Blue."

"Hi, Alix," said the Bolian, and the Vulcan nodded in greeting.

"_How is that for being you?"_

She took a seat at the table with her host's friends and tried to smile like Alix – a difficult thing for her to do, as beaming expressions of joy were not her usual fare. She needn't have bothered: Brok was too busy shovelling food into his mouth to notice anything at all, and Sarn was reading from a PADD – she had only glanced up to greet her friend, before returning her eyes to the text she was studying.

Brok paused in his shovelling long enough to ask: "Where were you earlier, Alix?"

"What right do you have to –" she clamped her lips, took a breath, and tried again. "Babysitting a Klingon fool. Why?

"Battle drill," said Sarn, and Kana chortled. Captain Drake was a firm believer in drilling his crews until they could fight the ship with something like perfection. Few other captains shared his passion for fast, effective gunnery; new hands coming aboard the _Endeavour_ always got the fright of their life when they came to learn their new captain's obsession. Sarn and Brok, both recent additions to the crew, and coming from a ship that had rarely held combat readiness drills, found the daily exercises a trial.

"It's not funny," groaned Brok.

Kana hit him with a sour look. "Do not presume to tell me how to feel!"

He was alarmed by the pure, unfiltered venom in her voice. "Are you all right, Alix?" That sort of snappishness just wasn't like her – she was such a sweet person. When she wasn't being a tease and a pain, that was.

"Peachy!"

"You do not sound 'peachy'," observed Sarn.

"_Your act is getting very poor, Kana."_

Kana sighed to cover her exasperation, bit her tongue, and tried again in a more civil tone of voice. "Klingons can be a trial, and Grownel wanted to fight. Klingons in a violent mood…always a pain."

"He wanted to fight you? Are you all right?" Despite his best efforts, Brok sounded concerned. He inspected her for injuries, but for someone who had apparently just fought a Klingon she was in remarkably good shape.

Kana chuckled. "Klingon arrogance never ceases to amaze me. Grownel actually believed that he could beat me!" She roared with laughter. "Even after I had disarmed him, he still believed that he could somehow stop me."

"You beat a Klingon?"

"Don't sound so surprised, Brok."

That heat was loitering in her tone again. He had to tread carefully. "No offence, Alix, but you're a human; he's a Klingon…that's a one-sided fight."

"_No,"_ she said to Alix, _"I'm a goddess, he's a meatbag."_

She shrugged and said aloud: "I'm stronger than I look. Faster, too. Perhaps you would like to test me, Brok?"

There was a kind of sickly pleasure in her voice, delight in her eyes, and it frightened Brok. He was the weapons officer, a violent profession, but he wasn't a fighting man; by nature he was a peaceful person. The aggression in Alix now quite disturbed him; he hadn't known that she could be so dark.

"I don't have a lot of skill in hand-to-hand fighting. Try Wolf."

"I did."

Brok wondered about his friend's sanity. To even daydream about fighting with Wolf…it was insane. He had never seen or heard of a creature as ridiculously fast or strong as the security chief – and he'd read a lot of stories. "And you've still got your arms and legs. I'm amazed."

"Don't say what you're thinking…" 

"She might have gone easy on me."

"_Smooth."_

Kana ignored her host and continued pretending to be her. "Why are you two eating? You especially, Brok. The captain is putting on a dinner party tonight, and I know for a fact that you are invited. You eat too much as it is; you don't need two dinners."

"The captain's just putting on a light supper for his guests. Right?"

"Wrong." Malicious delight danced on her features. "Klingons like a big meal. Tonight there will be more food set on the table than your beady little eyes can take in at once. And you will be expected to eat your fill. If you keep eating like this you'll burst. Could be entertaining, but think of the poor cleaners…"

Brok laughed and pushed his plate away. "All right, all right. I was just enjoying that."

"How you can stomach it – let alone enjoy it – is a mystery to me."

The tactical officer was spared the necessity of answering by the thunder of General Kravft's voice. "Destroyer!"

That tone of fury…Kana could not help laughing. She had been around Klingons in a mood before, and knew what it usually led to: delicious violence. She thought about Kravft, the younger Colonel Kravft that she and her host had encountered all those years ago: impatient, impulsive, quick to action and incapable of thought; she doubted that he had changed much with age. He was angry now, in a rage, it was plain for all to hear; she was the object of his anger; she prayed that he would choose to get physical about it. Smashing the old fool into goo would be such a delight, and it was always more fun with an audience.

"General," she cooed, rising and turning her head slowly to meet his eyes. He was even angrier than she had imagined: his towering form was rigid, his fists clenched so tightly that his arms shook, his deep brown face flushed even darker by blood. Kana regretted having to remain in her host's form – she would have liked to meet the Klingon general's rage with her own eyes, smirk with her own teeth.

"You attacked my subordinate!"

She made a _pfft_ sound with her lips. "Your…subordinate wanted a fight; I gave him one; it's not my fault that he was incapable of winning! You should have warned him not to pick fights with his betters; to stick to battles he has a chance of winning." Kravft's face darkened still further, and Kana's glee increased. "Struck a nerve, have I?"

"_Kana, you're pissing him off! Maybe I should take over."_

"_Too late. He can't get any angrier, and when he blows it'll be safer for us if I'm in control."_

Kravft spoke to her through clenched teeth. "Be careful, Destroyer. I will not tolerate your offence."

"Please don't. In fact, why don't we settle it now? Hmm?" She spread her arms. "Your honour has been scarred; and let's not forget about our last meeting. I imagine you're still after satisfaction?"

"Do not provoke me, Destroyer. You _will_ regret it!"

She laughed quietly. "I doubt that. Come on, Kravft: here and now. A knife fight."

"You have no knife."

"I'll take yours. Come on, General; I'm getting closer; if you don't draw you'll make it too easy for me."

"I will not attack an unarmed opponent. It is without honour."

"Death without battle has no honour, either. Just a few more steps…"

Provoked beyond reason, Kravft drew his _d'k'tagh_ dagger and directed its gleaming point at Kana's chest. The security officer who had been escorting the Klingon saw the drawn weapon, recognized the danger to the helmsman (even if she had brought it upon herself), and went for his sidearm. Kana shot him a look that made him freeze where he was, and by then it was too late for the guard to do anything, anyway. Kravft came at her with a roar, his knife slashing. He had no intention to kill her, merely to draw blood – that would satisfy his honour; for now.

Kana had no intention of bleeding.

The Klingon and the Destroyer collided, there was a tangle of bodies, a blur of motion, and the next thing they were apart; Kana holding Kravft's dagger, blood on the Klingon's hand where the blades had bitten into him. He looked at the pink fluid that dribbled around his fingers, at his opponent and the twisted glee that ran through her like a river; he remembered their last encounter, all that had happened, all of the horror – terrible even for a Klingon; saw her advance on him, dagger held comfortably, her red eyes gleaming with a sadistic desire to hurt.

"Alix!" Shouted a terrified Brok. "What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?"

Sarn's voice followed; upset, but authoritative. "Lieutenant, put down that weapon."

"Stay out of this!" She bellowed, and the mess fell silent. Her attention returned to Kravft; her lips spread into a grim smile. "You're quaking. I thought Klingons didn't fear death?" She was close enough to touch him, close enough to tickle the cold metal point of the blade across his skin, tracing a line through the General's sweat. It required remarkably little pressure for the knife to break the skin – exceptionally sharp steel. She hovered the tip above the main artery of the Klingon's throat, rotating the blade slightly left and right; a little jerk of her wrist and it would all be over; the threat was crystal clear.

"_Kana, what are you doing?"_ Said a dismayed Alix. She knew far too well what her other self was capable of; knew of her sick pleasures, and how far she was willing to go to fulfil them; knew how great the blackness was in her heart. Kravft was in terrible danger; the Destroyer did not make idle threats. Maybe she should wrench back control, but if Kana resisted, if she fought the Change, there would be a battle for their body, and while the two spirits were fighting one another their shared physical form would be thrown into fits; she might kill Kravft in her efforts to save him.

And…and she trusted Kana. Despite the unquestionable dark nature of her companion, despite what she knew of the Destroyer's past (terrible things; things that could drive a man mad), she still trusted her other self. Kana had demonstrated her loyalty to her host, had saved them both time and again, and a strong bond had been built between the two of them. Actions like Kana's current ones strained that bond, but nothing had ever happened to break it.

Alix took no action.

Kana ignored her host, just as she ignored the pleading looks that Brok and Sarn were giving her, and the security guard's second attempt for his phaser – he would stun her if he had to. She focused her red eyes on Kravft, showed him her teeth, and began to purr: "Have you lived a guilt-free life, General? Have you amassed great honour? You're a twitch away from death. Do any regrets present themselves to your mind? Anything you'd like to say?"

The comm whistle broke the air, loud and completely unexpected, a shock in the silent room that made crewmen jump. It could have been disastrous for Kravft, with the dagger in such a dangerous position, but he was able to overcome his natural panic reaction and stay as still as a statue. Kana Nain simply wasn't startled by the sound – she neither flinched nor blinked.

"Lieutenant Nain to the captain's cabin," ordered the voice of Captain Drake.

Kana smirked at General Kravft. "Saved by the bell." She handed him his dagger and said quite calmly, "If you want a rematch, sir, just let me know. I enjoy blood sport."

She walked away, feeling the eyes of Alix's crewmates on her, stunned and frightened by her behaviour. Who had ever imagined that the smiley helmsman had such a dark side to her personality? The old Endeavours had seen hints of the evil in Nain before, but nothing like this! She had come so close to actually _murdering_ their passenger! It was beyond belief.

Kravft watched her leave as well, impressed again by her prowess as a warrior – every bit as good as he remembered her being. There was no dishonour in Grownel's loosing to her, or in his own defeat; she was the greatest warrior there was – after Kahless, of course.

Despite that, he silently vowed vengeance.

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William Drake was an old-fashioned kind of captain; he believed in fast, efficient gunnery, subordinates following orders without question (although this rule did not seem to apply to himself when it came to listening to admiralty orders), strict attention to discipline and the spirit of the regulations – if not the actual letter of them. He believed that the only effective ship was a well-trained, well-disciplined happy ship, and he put his people through repeated exercises to hone their skills to perfection. Hardly a day went by without all hands being sent to their battlestations and put through a mock encounter. Other ships might have battle readiness drills once every two weeks – once a month or less in some cases – but Drake was of the opinion that space was dangerous, that the Federation had many enemies, and that his ship had to be ready to fight at any time.

Other captains who put their crews through so many exercises might have found the people tired, grumbling and dissatisfied. In this matter Drake was fortunate that he was blessed with both a great deal of natural charisma, and that he had an impressive reputation as a fighting captain. People came aboard Drake's ship knowing what they were getting themselves in for; knowing that there would be hard work involved, but also knowing that their work would be made to pay off. Drake was phenomenally lucky in his missions, and hardly one went by without some sort of action – action in which a hand could earn a year's pay in an afternoon's work. The crew respected their captain. More importantly, they _liked_ him. People would do a lot for a leader that they admired, and very little for one they didn't.

A happy ship was the only effective ship, Drake's firm belief, and as _Endeavour_ under his command had always had one of the highest efficiency ratings and lowest transfer rates of any ship in the fleet, it seemed to be a theory that had some merit.

Today, Drake had cause for concern. This new crew had never been the model of speed and efficiency that he had come to expect from Endeavours, but they had been reasonable enough and they'd been improving. Today, though…the results from the latest mock battle were still on his screen – low-seventies, far below the usual score of mid-eighties, and even that was well below the old _Endeavour_'s average ninety-three percent.

New people, Drake reminded himself. Some had been freshmen, first voyagers, and a large chunk of the new intake had come from the _Albatross._ A sad lot the Albatrosses. They had served under the kind of captain that Drake had always despised: a rigid disciplinarian, holding up the Starfleet regulation manual as sacred and mercilessly punishing anyone who violated even the most ridiculous rule. A day of refuse maintenance for minor offences was not an uncommon punishment on the _Albatross_, and the crew had been close to breaking point by the time the ship returned from its cruise. Starfleet Command had taken one look at the situation, reprimanded Captain Briggs, and scattered his crew amongst the other ships in dock. More than a hundred had ended up on _Endeavour_, and while they were adjusting to their new ship they still were uncomfortable, out of place, and unwilling to believe that their lot had really changed for the better.

Drake had been unfortunate in his new crew, and not just the hands, but the officers as well. McDonald was an officer in the mould of Briggs, and Drake would never have taken her aboard if he'd had a choice. Their styles of command were too different to ever gel, and McDonald was not very popular amongst the crew – especially the old Endeavours, who were unused to her kind of tyrannical regulation worship, and the Albatrosses saw too much of their old captain in her to do anything but despise her.

She wasn't the only problem, but she promised to be the worst. The captain and the first officer had to be able to work together; otherwise the ship could not function at its peak. Drake wasn't at all sure what he was going to do about McDonald. In theory he could simply order her to fall into line – he being sole master after God on his ship – but in practice that couldn't work, and it would leave him with a resentful first officer.

The new science and security officers gave Drake further cause for concern. Wolf he knew, and he respected her, but she had a problem following orders. She had never learnt to obey without question, and her simple mind often couldn't understand subtle strategy – she would end up thinking that her captain was making a mistake, do her own thing, and ruin her captain's plans. She was also a predator, her mindset was to kill or be killed, and this meant that the body count became very large whenever Wolf got involved. She could provide a landing party with more security than a platoon of marines, but she couldn't use the stun setting on a phaser – or a phaser at all, for that matter. She was dangerous, to put it plainly, and Drake feared for the next delicate hostage situation the crew might encounter.

Sarn was another matter entirely. She was an excellent scientist, one of the best sensor operators in the fleet, and a capable head of department; seemingly perfect. The problem with her was that she had never learned to properly control her emotions. Vulcan emotions were powerful and could be all-consuming. Before the Vulcans had learnt to govern their passions their race had been a barbaric, bloodthirsty one, hell-bent on its own destruction. Sarn wasn't that bad, but with Vulcans there was a fine line between control and out-of-control. She had strayed from that line before, and Drake worried that it could happen again.

He wished that those could have been the only officers that he had cause for concern about, but they weren't. Brok could also become a problem. Not because he was incompetent – far from it – but because he was the butt of all of Alix's jokes. If he wasn't careful, he could lose the crew's respect, and a crew would not follow someone they didn't respect. Drake had already spoken to Alix about her teasing, but it hadn't been a very successful talk – not that he had expected it to be. Alix had said something to him about Brok starting it, she just did it better than him, and then she had smiled in that charming way of hers and he hadn't felt like pressing the point. Maybe he needed to be firmer with her.

There were bright points in all the gloom. Drake had retained his old chief engineer, a man who knew the inner workings of the starship better than he knew his own birthday, and the new CMO was both a brilliant medical man and a very kindly human being: the kind of doctor who even the men afraid of needles were happy to go and see. And, of course, Alix had stayed with him, providing him with the best helm officer currently available, and all the friendship he could need. While some of the new hands were uncomfortable around her that would pass, and all of the old Endeavours thought the world of her and were happy to have her aboard again.

The problem of the low score remained, and Drake was deeply concerned. Maybe he had surprised the people, maybe they hadn't expected an exercise today given their passengers, but if that was the case then it was even _more_ worrying. An enemy was not going to advertise before launching an attack, and if seventy percent efficiency was the best the _Endeavour_ could hope for, then Drake feared for the ship. She was not new; she could no more go toe-to-toe with a modern cruiser (a vessel of her nominal class) than she could engage a ship of the line. Not without a genius like Alix at the helm to keep them from harm, and the ship's phasers thundering at two-, or preferably three-times the enemy's rate of fire. That was nothing like what they had achieved today. If this afternoon's simulated Romulan attack had been real, the _Endeavour_ would have been destroyed or taken by the enemy.

Not good enough. Nowhere damned near good enough!

"Commander McDonald to the captain's cabin."

The first officer arrived a few minutes later, looking shaken. She had heard the heat in the captain's voice, quite uncommon for him, and she was concerned. Drake's appearance when she saw him did nothing to make her feel better: he was humourless and severe; he seemed at least seven feet tall and imposing as a Klingon.

"Captain."

"I've been reviewing the last battle simulation, Commander, and I am appalled. Seventy-two percent efficiency. This ship has not scored so low since Captain Murdock had her in 'sixty-nine. I am thoroughly disappointed."

McDonald took the words as the slap they were intended to be. The captain's disappointment was bad enough, but the comparison with Murdock, one of the most incompetent captains of the twenty-third century – a man who had only reached his rank due to his family's influence with the Admiralty and the Federation Council – was a pretty severe blow. Worse still, the first officer knew something about that unhappy captain. Murdock had been an officer after McDonald's mind, and it was the commander who had led the crew through that last great fumble. Drake had not intended to directly compare his first officer and Murdock, but it seemed to McDonald that he was.

"Respectfully, sir, it's unfair to judge based on that exercise."

"Unfair?"

She drew herself up. "Yes, sir. The crew had been under the impression that no battle drills would be held today."

Drake folded his arms. "I see. And if a real enemy ship had appeared I suppose they would have been under the impression that it wouldn't attack today? Commander, if the crew can only score in the eighties – and that's a frighteningly low score, anyway – if they can only score in the eighties when they _know_ that a test is coming, then I fear for the safety of this ship."

McDonald wondered at the captain's thinking. To her mind, this insistence on preparing for battle all seemed rather unnecessary. The _Endeavour_ had but one job to do: to deliver Mr. Harrow, his staff, and the two Klingons to their destination. After that, the ship was to return to Earth, there probably to be decommissioned and sent to the breaker's yard. There would be no action in this commission, no battle – Klingon space was not the danger it had once been – and Drake could drill the crew night and day, work them mercilessly until they scored perfectly, but there was no real point to it. The commission would end, the ship would be decommissioned, and the crew would be scattered amongst the fleet. Most would find their way into the ships of captains who did not share Drake's ideas, and the months of rigorous training would be wasted.

She didn't say any of this, however. She didn't dare, not with the captain in this mood.

"Eighty percent is considered a good score on most ships in the fleet," is what she said instead.

Drake's expression darkened. "Eighty is not good enough for _Endeavour_."

McDonald was shocked. Those words…they sounded so arrogant to her, so pompous, as if Drake considered his ship to be superior to the rest of the fleet. She had heard of captains having pride in their vessels, but this was going a little far in her opinion.

"Come with me," said the captain, picking up a PADD and heading for the door. McDonald fell dutifully into step beside him, wondering where they were going, and why.

Drake had no particular destination in mind; he was simply looking for an old Endeavour – any of them. Although he had lost almost all his officers and a large portion of his crew at the end of the last commission, there had still been more than two hundred Endeavours waiting on the starbase when the ship had been given her new mission, and they had wasted no time in coming aboard. Old, experienced hands made up two-fifths of the ship's compliment, and it didn't take Drake long to spot a familiar face.

"Mr. Banks, take a look at this, please." He handed over the PADD and gave the crewman a few seconds to look at it. "Your opinion?"

"It's bad, sir. I didn't know we could score so low!"

"Thank you, Mr. Banks."

"Sir, permission to speak?"

"Granted, of course."

"It's those new people – no offence, Commander – the Albatrosses and the Indefatigables and the Cochranes, sir. They've never been properly drilled, sir, and half of them have never seen action."

Drake was of that opinion as well. The _Indefatigable_ had been on deep space patrol for two years without incident when she had returned to port, and the _Cochrane_ had always been an unlucky, unhappy ship. None of the new draft were prime crewmen, and it was going to take time to train them up. Under other circumstances he might have accepted that, but not when he was heading fast into Klingon space, carrying aboard a vital diplomat. Peace treaty with the Empire or no peace treaty, he expected some kind of trouble.

"Thank you, Mr. Banks."

"Thank you, sir."

They returned to the captain's cabin. Drake felt in a better mood for his walk, but the drill still weighed heavily on his mind. Something had to be done to whip the crew into fighting shape.

"Lieutenant Nain to the captain's cabin," he called, before facing McDonald again. "We do things differently on _Endeavour_. This ship has seen more than her fair share of action, and I never take it for granted that we'll have a quiet cruise. The crew must be prepared to fight."

"Understood, sir."

"There's a problem, however."

"Sir?"

A slight smile touched his lips. "The problem is that we don't have a crew yet. We have a large body of people, but they're not unified – they're not a crew. We have Endeavours, Albatrosses, Indefatigables, and Cochranes; they should all be Endeavours."

"It takes time for a crew to come together, sir."

"Yes it does. But there are ways of accelerating the process."

Before McDonald could ask what the captain meant by that, the door chimed. Drake invited Alix in, and Kana stepped across the threshold, flashed an unpleasant smile at McDonald, and an insincere one at her host's captain.

"Alix, take a look at this."

"Pitiful."

"Any thoughts on how we can improve?"

"I understand that flogging was always a good motivator…"

Drake and McDonald stared at her, McDonald aghast that she might be serious, and Drake knowing that she wasn't but not amused all the same.

"_Either do a better job of being me,"_ Alix warned her alter ego, _"or prepare for the Change."_

Kana showed her teeth. "Bad time for a joke, was it?"

"This is a serious matter, Alix. Treat it that way."

"_Control your temper, Kana."_

She didn't. "Fine. The Albatrosses are inept. We could have brought aboard so many monkeys and they would have been as useful."

"That's going too far," snapped McDonald.

"Ex-Albatross yourself, Commander?" Sneered Kana.

"Alix!"

"I'm sorry, Captain," said Alix, and it was Alix speaking, she having taken control back from Kana – without the Destroyer fighting back, surprisingly. "To you too, Commander. It's been a trying afternoon."

"How so?" Drake asked; McDonald was too irate with her to speak.

"Grownel wanted to go for a walk, and he wanted me to be his chaperone. After that Kravft decided to…air a few grievances."

"Oh," said Drake. It explained for him her out-of-character behaviour. Klingons could be difficult, and Alix wasn't exactly blessed with a reservoir of patience.

"No excuse. I shouldn't have behaved like that." And to her companion she added: _"_You_ shouldn't have behaved like that!"_

"_It's me."_

Alix ignored her other self. "There are a lot of awkward sods in the new intake, sir. _Albatross_ was an unhappy ship; so was _Cochrane_. The old Endeavours are doing their best to make the new guys welcome and show them the ropes, but it's a slow process."

"I'm hoping to speed it along."

She was baffled for a moment, but then her eyes cleared and a crafty smile raced across her face. "If you're thinking what I think you're thinking…"

"I probably am, but let's be sure."

"You're thinking that nothing draws people together like shared peril."

"Precisely."

"Excuse me, sir, but what are you two talking about?"

"Nothing unites a crew like a common struggle, Commander. Facing death together has a wonderful way of making friends out of strangers. Alix, I want you to go back to the bridge and alter our course…what…a point to starboard? Two? Would that do it?"

"Perfectly."

McDonald searched her memory for what she knew of the ship's course and local spatial phenomenon. "Sir, if we alter our course we'll risk running into the ion storm."

Captain Drake smiled. "Precisely."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Maybe this was a bad idea."

"You look fine."

"Really? You don't think dress uniform would be more appropriate?"

"Nah."

Drake inspected his appearance in the mirror one more time. It was true that in his best Starfleet uniform jacket, service ribbons neatly displayed on his breast, his hair precisely combed and his beard trimmed neat he looked quite striking. He was a tall man, handsome with it, and the black and burgundy Starfleet uniform could make any man look good.

He wasn't satisfied, however.

"You don't think that, as captain, I should be in my full splendour?"

"Nah. I think it would look weird with you in dress and the rest of us in duty."

"Maybe you're right."

"Of course I'm right." Alix's face lit up with a grin. "When am I ever not? Look, stop fretting, Will. Step away from that bloody mirror; let's go down to the table, eat this meal, and go to bed feeling all stuffed and bloated. Okay?"

He grinned at her. "How I wish I be as calm as you. I don't know how you do it sometimes."

"It's just the things that frighten you don't scare me, and what I find terrifying you'd think inconsequential." She was still smiling, but the shine in her eyes didn't match the grin on her face, and there had been a heavy note in her voice. What she had said was the pure and honest truth.

What gave her nightmares? Drake pondered the question during the turbolift ride down to the captain's dining room. He and Alix had been through some terrifying ordeals together, and the girl had hardly broken a sweat during any of them. He knew from the few stories she'd told that her life as a private adventurer hadn't been peaceful or pleasant, and yet there was nothing to indicate that she'd found the time at all terrifying. What did scare her? Drake didn't want to ever find out.

The dining table was set out with the ship's best silver; the decanters of wine were waiting, tall crystal glasses standing beside each plate ready to accept the drink that would flow freely throughout the evening. Everything looked splendid. Most of the galley staff were old Endeavours, and they had been determined to do their ship proud.

"Looks good, doesn't it?"

"It does. Now, Alix, best table manners. No belching."

"Fine," she agreed sullenly.

"I hope things go smoothly tonight, Alix. I need it to go smoothly."

"Will…" She moaned.

"I heard about your little duel with Grownel."

Alix looked indignant. "He started that. He threw down the glove."

"Maybe so," Drake allowed. "I also heard about what happened in the mess hall, and you can't tell me that Kravft asked you to put a knife to his throat. I know _you_ provoked him into drawing."

"Yeah, I did." She didn't sound even slightly apologetic. "He'd have done so anyway. Kravft and I…have an acquaintance, Will."

"Anything you'd like to tell me?"

She smiled narrowly. "I'll just observe that Klingons hate to lose. And he lost big time."

Drake knew that when Alix had decided not to talk about something there was absolutely no way of getting her to open her mouth on the subject. It had irked him at first, but he'd had nearly twenty years of acquaintance with her to get used to it. Whatever had gone on between Alix and Kravft, he wasn't going to find out from her. Fine: he'd simply ask the general about it later.

He warned: "If there are going to be problems between you two, then stay the hell away from him, Alix. I want a quiet flight: I don't want my helmsman murdering one of my passengers. Okay?"

"Okay, Will."

Did she mean what she said? He hoped so, but he had no way of knowing.

The captain's other guests all arrived exactly on time, to the very minute, and Drake led them into the dining hall and to their seats – he had learnt from the fiasco in the conference room that morning and had assigned chairs to each of his guests. And so General Kravft sat at the captain's right hand, and the line down the right side of the table continued with Harrow, Grownel, Ling and Hope. At Drake's left hand was his first officer, and so the left side of the table comprised the officers in descending order of rank: McDonald, Chief Engineer Horris Fran, Lieutenant Commander Sarn, Alix, Lieutenant Brok, Lieutenant Wolf, and Doctor Richard Ilerson. The ship's company appeared splendid in their black and burgundy, and the guests had made every effort to dress up for the occasion, Harrow and Ling in tasteful suits, the Klingons in their best armour, and Hope in a very nice dress that she had packed just in case there was going to be some kind of ceremony when they reached their destination. It was a dress that flowed across the yeoman's body like a waterfall of milk, and it made it very difficult for Dr. Ilerson and Alix to keep their minds on the meal, or on the conversation that was taking place around them.

Food appeared on the table, brought out by the galley staff, who were doubling as servants for this occasion. Each of the dishes that Drake had requested that morning appeared, one after the other, and as the aromas mingled everyone present felt their stomachs growl with anticipation. Drake stood and proposed a toast to long and happy relations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. It was well received, and the wine that accompanied it was a delicate, fruity red – Chateaux Picard 2290, a fine year – which was very well received.

The feast began in earnest, plates being piled high with all manner of culinary treats from across the Federation. The Klingons in particular delighted in this great display of food, and delighted even more so in devouring it. As glasses were filled and emptied and more and more dishes were brought out, Drake watched the pleasure in Kravft and Grownel grow and grow, washing away any lingering fear that he might have made a mistake with this dinner. Whatever feelings the Klingons had for his helmsman, they did not present themselves during this dinner, Alix acting very civilly towards Kravft and Grownel, and the two Klingons returning the courtesy; Drake was glad.

There was conversation, of course, but for the life of him Drake could not recall what was said even a few seconds after the words had passed his ears. He responded civilly to any remarks that came his way, shared one or two stories with Harrow and Kravft, but for the most part the talk was more of an impression for him than it was a fact: a happy burble in the background. Everyone was getting along, talking and laughing amiably, and even the people he might have expected trouble from, namely Wolf and Alix, behaved faultlessly. Alix recounted an adventure of hers, something to do with an Andorian pirate named Taninn, and when she closed with an account of the masterful deception that had led Taninn into surrendering his destroyer to her tiny corvette, the entire table erupted into a roar of laughter.

The courses came one after the other, the wine went round and round, and a good time was had by all. Eventually the dinner came to an end with a noble bottle of port, and while this was being drunk the captain gave warning to the assembled group that he feared they could be in for foul weather tomorrow. General Kravft gave a short speech to express his gratitude, and echo Drake's sentiments from the beginning of the meal; the captain wished his guests good night, and the party broke up, everyone in tearing high spirits and utterly fulfilled.

"That was a very successful meal, I thought," he remarked to Alix, when they were once again in his quarters, sharing a pot of coffee in comfort. Their discarded uniform jackets hung from the backs of Drake's chairs and Alix, who had eaten perhaps too heartily, was lying on his sofa with her shirt open.

"Very good." She agreed, and promptly fell asleep.

He left the helmsman snoozing on his couch and went into his bedroom, where his computer terminal was located. Sitting down at this, he called up a blank sheet and began to type:

'My dearest Annabelle,

'This is just a quick note to let you know how things stand at this early stage of the voyage. We took aboard Mr. Harrow and his party from Starbase Seventy on schedule, and with only a minimum of fuss (Alix, would you believe it, doesn't own a dress uniform, and so she turned up to meet our distinguished guests in her regular clothes, feeling that they were smart enough for the occasion). We're now underway for a little Klingon space station called _In'jara'wa_, and at our current speed of warp six we should be there in about three weeks; a nice, slow, leisurely flight.

'The ship is exactly as I remember her, and I cannot tell you what a joy it is to be aboard her again! When Admiral Granger first mentioned this assignment to me, I was afraid that it would come with a brand new starship for me to get used to, but no. Chief Fran oversaw the last refit, and she's as trim and up-to-the-minute as she can be made. Oh, the old girl's still a little slow, and I know you'll say she's under-armed – belongs to another age – but I wouldn't have any other ship.

'Sadly, there have been some changes aboard. You remember Pete, my old first officer? He's commander of the _Wildcat_ frigate now, and he took a couple of my old officers with him. My bridge, therefore, is staffed with unfamiliar faces. They're all Starfleet men, and I have great hopes for them, but right now there are some rough edges that need to be rounded off.

'Speaking of rough edges, our friend Alix surprised me yet again by revealing that she and our Klingon passenger, General Kravft, have already met. She wouldn't tell me when or how, and the general only said something about a fight, but it's clear that something pretty serious went on between the two of them. Kravft doesn't seem happy to see her, and I keep worrying that he'll take a very Klingon approach to dealing with his unhappiness. For her part, Alix just seems amused by the whole thing, but then you know Alix. I hope that nothing goes really sour between those two: three weeks is a long time to spend cooped up on a ship with someone you can't stand.

'That's all for now – just a few words to let you know how we're doing. I'll write to you again in a few days to keep you apprised. How are things back home? I hope your mother is feeling much better.

'By the way, Nwabudike might be heading through the solar system in the next couple of days. If he comes by to visit, please give him my apologies, and promise him that I'll arrange a rendezvous with his ship as soon as this assignment is over.

'Well, that's all that I can think of for the moment: we had a bit of a party to welcome aboard our guests, and I can feel whatever Alix put in those glasses muddling my thoughts already. My bunk is calling to me, so I'll sign this now with all of my love, and look forward to hearing from you soon.'


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

The prophesised bad weather came, striking the ship shortly before the beginning of the day shift. Alix had fallen asleep on Drake's sofa after her second cup of coffee, having never altered the ship's course. However, the storm itself had turned, rushing towards the _Endeavour_, and the inattentive officers of the graveyard shift had failed to notice until it was already too late to do anything about it. Subspace disturbances on the fringe of the storm collapsed the ship's warp field, making escape impossible, and a few minutes later she was consumed by the tempest.

"Red alert! Red alert! This is not a drill. Captain Drake to the bridge."

The wail of the klaxon and the booming ship-wide announcement would have been more than enough to wake Drake, had he not already been on his feet and pulling on his uniform. The storm's initial impact had roused the captain from his slumber, and when he had seen a swirling mass of purple outside of his window instead of the usual blackness and stars he had grasped what had happened.

Alix was awake as well, tucking her shirt into her trousers and pulling on her uniform jacket. She was suddenly very grateful for her misspent youth, for she awoke without a hangover, the effects of the alcohol having long since left her. She dressed quickly, took a look at the storm raging outside, and felt a tinge of worry. A nagging feeling that she had forgotten something had kept her company at the party, but she hadn't been able to work out what it was that she had forgotten, and Kana had been no help. Now she knew and it worried her. Since the ship had not changed course, the storm must have, and to have done that it must have gathered strength.

She thought about nothing else until she was at her post, studying her instruments. A quick review of the night's sensor logs showed what had happened: the storm that she had been monitoring had merged with another, and together they had swept down towards the starship. They had been swallowed whole, and now they were deep inside the maelstrom.

"Alix?"

"Not good, Will. The storm's picked up a lot of speed since yesterday. We're completely engulfed."

"Can we warp out?"

"No. Subspace disturbance in the region is too high. We'll have to get outside the storm before we can reengage the warp drive."

"How long will that take?"

"A day, at least."

Drake gripped the edge of the helm console to keep himself upright and implored his friend, "Why so long?"

Alix wouldn't risk glancing up from her instruments. "We have to fly through the storm, Will. We can't out-fly it at impulse speeds and the storm's currents are dragging us further in, so we can't sail with it. We have to beat up _into_ the wind and pass out the other side."

Drake nodded and made his way across the rumbling deck to his command chair. "All hands, this is the captain. The ship has been engulfed by a vast ion storm. There is no immediate danger, but we can expect at least twenty-four hours of rough weather, and flying in these conditions will take its toll on the ship. All off duty personnel should get whatever rest they can, in preparation for busy shifts. I'll keep you apprised of any developments. Courage, people, and we'll see this one through. Captain out."

The day shift arrived a few seconds after Drake had finished his announcement, relieving the graveyard watch. The captain noticed how uncomfortable the great majority of his people were. In first voyagers he could understand such levels of apprehension, but there was fear amongst the more experienced hands as well. Brok was a noticeably greener shade of blue, and McDonald looked pale. Only the old Endeavours seemed unperturbed by the angry mass of blue and purple clouds on the main screen, but then Drake wouldn't have expected something like a simple ion storm to be of much bother to those people.

Watching the clouds roll and thunder outside was beginning to make Drake feel nauseous. "Alix, put our course on the screen."

A graphic appeared promptly: a fuzzy purple squiggle that represented the perimeter of the storm, a flashing red blip to mark _Endeavour_'s position, and a bright green line tracing Alix's chosen path through. A long line indeed, and to the side of the image there was a revised estimate of the flight time: twenty-six hours.

The captain hid his glee successfully. This was better than anything he could have hoped for. If the storm hadn't gained this terrible momentum and extra size they would have only skimmed its edge, or perhaps plunged inside for an hour or two to shake everyone up a bit. While a couple of hours of palpable terror and brisk activity could do wonders for uniting a body of men, a full day of it would do so much better. He knew his ship, knew what she could take, and having seen scans of the storm he knew that they were in no great danger. Oh, there was always the chance that something might go wrong, that they might lose their shields and be smashed apart by the next electrical discharge, but the likelihood was remote. Barring any kind of catastrophe, _Endeavour_ would see through the next twenty-six hours and emerge on the other side, shaken and perhaps a little battered, but in one piece.

He wanted to sit comfortably in his chair, a serene image on the bridge, something for the first voyagers to look to and draw some strength from, but after a few minutes he found himself twitching and knew how that must appear. He wasn't at all nervous – he was excited, this was the kind of flying that he loved – but he knew how easily his motions could be misinterpreted. He left the chair and leant over Alix's shoulder, grinning eagerly.

"You're happy."

"I love this. It's a proper test of what the ship can do!"

"Yeah," she was grinning too, alive with pleasure. "If only there was a Mirak cruiser waiting for us on the other side, it'd be perfect."

Drake laughed, in high spirits. "Careful what you wish for, Alix."

Few aboard the ship shared their captain or helmsman's enthusiasm, and the first few hours of the flight were fraught with terror, where every minor rumble that passed through the starship was a sign that the hull was coming apart at the seams and all was lost. After about four or five hours even the most hysterical had calmed down, but few could say that there were exactly happy with the situation.

"This is nothing," Shuttle Technician Joe Friedman said, pulling his head out from the impulse manifold that he'd been working on. "A couple of years back, we chased this freaking huge Lyran battleship through a plasma storm. You ever been in a plasma storm?" Marty Lewis shook his head. "They're freaking terrifying. Like a great huge belt of fire, and when you get inside them you're buffeted by powerful waves, and you've got to dodge around these great freaking twisters of pure energy that'll vaporize your ship if you even clip them. We'd have died half a dozen times in there if it weren't for Nain. The Lyrans, poor bastards, weren't so lucky."

Lewis knew that the words were meant kindly, but at that moment it didn't much matter. He was an Albatross, and all of this was new and frightening for him. Even more than being an Albatross, he was an inexperienced one. He had only joined the service a few months ago with his younger brother, the family coming from a hard up mining colony and desperately needing money. He hadn't even known that such terrible things as ion storms existed when he had volunteered.

Friedman got the impression that his story had not had the motivational effect that he had been hoping for. He looked at the other men in the shuttle bay, saw their glum looks, and reminded himself that they were new to this. Shuttle Maintenance was made up almost entirely of Albatrosses and first voyagers, only a couple of Endeavours in there to hold everything together. His old buddies were going about their work professionally, as though nothing extraordinary at all was going on, but the Albatrosses were having difficulty concentrating, and most of the landsmen weren't even trying.

They were a sorry lot, and Friedman pitied them. Not the landsmen, of course, those guys were just inexperienced; it was the old Albatrosses that got his sympathy. He had been on a punishment ship like that once – never again.

Unfortunately, Friedman's sympathy, while well meant, was the absolute last thing that the Albatrosses wanted. They had come aboard as outsiders, strangers, and they felt that the way the old hands singled them out for special attention kept them as such. They were the poor Albatrosses, and they needed a friendly shoulder to cry on after their hellish time. That wasn't what they wanted. They wanted to work, to be part of the team, to gain that privileged rank (for amongst the lower decks it was certainly a rank) of being an Endeavour. The old Cochranes, Indefatigables and the landsmen all felt the same way.

The starship suddenly heaved mightily, like an old sailing ship in a stormy sea, and everyone who couldn't grab hold of something solid went skating across the deck. Picking himself up from the floor, Friedman immediately realized that something was wrong. There was a heavy, metallic taste in the air, and the hairs on his arms and legs were tingling, like there was an electric charge in the atmosphere.

"EPS leak!" Friedman shouted, seeing the ruptured conduit, from which a deadly white mist was breathing into the shuttle bay. "EPS leak! Everybody out! Now, now, now!"

It could have been a disaster, a confused shambles as everyone ran to save their own skins and to hell with everyone else; indeed with so many first voyagers in the mix that was exactly what Friedman had expected. He was pleasantly surprised by the hurried, yet orderly, evacuation of the shuttle bay. When one of the technicians collapsed – a Fauril, a creature that came from a more oxygen-rich planet than Earth – two of his friends grabbed him by the arms and hauled him bodily out of the bay. Friedman and an old Albatross stood by the doorway, making sure that everyone else got out, before evacuating themselves and closing the door behind them.

"Everyone here?" Friedman checked, and when the headcount was completed he sealed the bulkhead and called engineering to alert them of the conduit rupture.

He was thoroughly proud of all of his people for keeping their cool and following the proper protocols, and it shone through onto his face. "Well done, lads. You're all Endeavours from today." It was the highest compliment that he could think of, and it made them all beam with pride.

News of the near-disaster in the shuttle bay reached the bridge, and Drake listened anxiously to the reports that came in, first from Doctor Ilerson to assure him that everyone was well, and then from Chief Fran to say that the conduit had been locked off, the atmosphere purified, and a repair team set to work.

"Good work, Chief. Do you know what caused the rupture?"

"We won't know for certain until we get a good look at the conduit, of course, but my guess would be bad maintenance when we were laid over in spacedock. It was a rush job to get us into space, and I'm not surprised that some things might have been missed." Fran sounded tired, and Drake wasn't surprised. So far nothing had gone seriously wrong, but a number of minor systems had broken down and the ship had suffered some damage. Fran and his people were hurrying throughout the starship to patch things up as they broke.

"Understood." He closed the comm and stepped down to Alix's side again. He had hardly left it since they had entered the storm. "How are we doing?"

Alix didn't look at him – she couldn't afford to take her eyes off her instruments. "We're through that rough patch, but I can't guarantee there won't be more turbulence ahead. Wolf's trying to map the currents as best she can, but a storm like this obeys laws of its own, and it doesn't always do what you might expect." A sudden sharp knock that came out of nowhere served nicely to underline her words.

"Can we do anything to improve things? I could devote more resources to sensors, have more hands study the data, if that would help."

Alix shook her head most emphatically. "Right now, Will, the best thing we can do is get out of this mess as fast as we can. More engine power, more structural integrity and inertial damper power; that's what we need. Sensors aren't doing us any good."

"Understood." Drake pressed comm interface on the helm console. "Chief, divert whatever you can spare into propulsion and structural integrity."

"On it, sir."

The _Endeavour_ picked up speed, and almost in response the raging of the storm increased, slamming into the ship's prow with ever-greater force and slowing her headway. For a moment, Drake seriously questioned his friend's opinion that they should fly against the storm, rather than try and sail with it, but a glance at Alix's boards told him why she had opted for this course. Subspace disturbances preceding the storm were far stronger and spread for a far greater distance than those trailing in its wake. If they escaped through the front they would have to get more than a million kilometres from the storm before they could go to warp (and if it picked up steam again as it had done before it would likely swallow them once more) whereas by coming out the back they could warp almost as soon as the nacelles were clear of the clouds.

"Is there anything else we can do, Alix?"

"Food would be lovely." It was now well-past midday, Alix had been at the helm without a break since oh-eight hundred, and she hadn't eaten since the captain's party at nineteen hundred the previous evening. It was hard work, battling against the currents, trying to keep the ship on as even a keel as possible, and Alix was desperately hungry.

"Take a break if you need to, Alix. Manning can take over for a while."

She shrugged off his friendly hand and adjusted the settings on the stabilising thrusters. "Nah. I have to do this myself, Will. No one else has got the experience, and this is a rough one."

He did not know if that was arrogance talking on Alix's part or not, but if nothing else he felt better with her at the helm. It was a comfort to know _Endeavour_ was in the hands of the most skilful helmsman since Hikaru Sulu.

"Ensign Pini."

The youngster dropped down to the captain's side. "Yes, sir."

"Rush down to the galley and bring up a few slices of bacon in a roll for the helmsman."

"And coffee," Alix added. "Strong black coffee."

Pini rushed off to fetch the order, glad to have something to do even if she was just playing waitress. Ever since the ship had entered the storm the captain and helmsman had been working madly, while the rest of the bridge crew stood on and watched. It was an uncomfortable position to be in – they were virtually spectators – and most of the bridge crew felt guilty for being so inactive while Alix was sweating over her boards and Drake was directing the activity in the rest of the ship.

"Vicki," the captain suddenly called, not being in a formal mood. "Go below and see how Harrow and Kravft are doing. Get them into their quarters and get them belted down."

"Aye, sir."

As it transpired, there was no need for McDonald to round up the guests. The Klingons, who had indulged rather more than anyone else at the dinner, had yet to awaken despite all of the noise and the lurching of the deck. Harrow and his servants were wide-awake, and they were all gathered in the diplomat's cabin. When McDonald walked in the three of them were playing cards, a good way to keep their mind off the ship's troubles.

"Commander McDonald!" Cried Harrow, springing to his feet and immediately adopting the role of host. "Please, come in. Take a seat. How are things on the bridge?"

"The captain has matters well in hand." It was a trite response, and McDonald knew it.

"The ship seems to be shaking an awful lot," Harrow said, as aware of the uselessness of McDonald's reply as she was. "It had occurred to me that…maybe…we were in some measure of trouble? That the ship was floundering?"

"As for that, I can put your mind at ease, sir. I have flown through a storm like this one before, and our transit was far, far rougher than this. In fact, sir, this is abnormally smooth sailing, and for that you have Lieutenant Nain to be thankful."

McDonald was neither lying nor exaggerating in the slightest. During her earliest years in Starfleet she had been on a deep space exploration vessel that had wandered into an ion storm neither as large nor as violent as this one. The ship had been tossed around sickeningly for hours, had lost a warp nacelle, and more than half the crew had been incapacitated by the time they escaped from it. Compared to that ordeal, the deck beneath her feet now was rock steady, and McDonald's opinion of Alix as a pilot skyrocketed. She still didn't think very much of her as an officer, or even as a person, but she had formed the opinion that there was no one she'd rather have at the helm.

"Well," said Harrow who could hear the honesty in her, "I'm glad of that, and I'll give my thanks to Lieutenant Nain when we are out of this."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate that. The captain has sent me to ask that you remain in your cabins for the time being. The situation is not dangerous, but it requires utmost concentration and the crew will be very busy until we're back in open space."

"I understand, Commander. Quite understand."

She went to leave, but Harrow asked her to stay, saying that poker was always more fun with four or more players – that three wasn't really enough. McDonald was hesitant, her place was on the bridge, but there was nothing for her to do there and it might be best if she remained. The diplomat and his people seemed to be bearing up okay so far, but there were still hours to go before their projected exit, and who knew what might happen between now and then? A uniformed presence, someone around to reassure them that everything was just fine, might be important, and as it turned out she was quite right; eighteen hours into the flight, Harrow started to lose his cool, and every jerk that passed through the ship became a dramatic sign that something was wrong. It took all of McDonald's skill and patience to keep him calm.

Up on the bridge, Alix wolfed down her roll and began to attack the ship's coffee supply. A fresh mug arrived hourly, Alix refusing to put the ship in anyone else's hands until they were out of the storm. Time moved on around her, the watch changed and changed again, so that the incompetent fools on the graveyard shift that had created this situation were back on the bridge. Still she remained at her place, unaware of the changes around her, unaware of time passing, her attention fixed on her instruments and her controls. And still Drake stood by her side, the captain not prepared to leave the bridge until Alix did.

"Attention all hands, this is the captain. We're in the home stretch now; just four hours until predicted escape. We're nearly out. Keep your nerves and keep working, and we'll be at warp before breakfast."

On and on the ship went, rocking constantly as waves of ions buffeted against the shields, but making good headway despite the fury of the elements around them. The old girl pushed her shoulders into the wind and pressed on, rarely stumbling and never tiring, until, a little over twenty-five hours after they had entered the maelstrom, the clouds fell away to aft and there was nothing before her but the beautiful infinite blackness of space – the most spectacular sight imaginable after more than a day of thick, dangerous cloud.

_Endeavour_ accelerated back up to warp six, and in a few seconds the storm was billions of kilometres behind them, and getting further away with every heartbeat. Alix, after one of the longest days of her life, rose unsteadily to her feet. Drake's arm wrapped immediately around her shoulder, supporting her. She gave him a tired smile and let him lead her away into the turbolift.

"_You did well, Alix. I'm proud of you."_

"Well done, Alix."

Those compliments from her two best friends made the exhausted Alix Nain smile right the way to bed, where she fell into a blissful sleep.

For his part, Drake napped for a few hours before returning to the bridge, feeling only moderately refreshed but that his place was up there. McDonald was holding the centre chair when he returned, the day shift all in place, Manning filling in for Nain. He looked at the faces of the new hands as he came out of the turbolift and found them to be smiling, cheerful and triumphant, a whole different group of men to the ones who had sat in the same seats just yesterday morning.

"Captain on the bridge," cried Pini, and as a body the crew came to their feet and turned to greet their commanding officer. Drake had never been received like that on his bridge before, and for a moment he wondered what was going on, before the answer appeared to him. McDonald began to clap, then Brok and Pini, then everyone all together, a great thunder of applause that filled the bridge.

He felt humbled, and wholly unworthy of their applause. When it had died down he said, "Thank you very much. All of you. But I didn't deserve that."

"You did, sir," insisted McDonald. "For leading us through that."

"I think Alix is more deserving of our thanks."

"How is she?"

"Sleeping. She was utterly exhausted."

"I'm not surprised," said Brok. "Twenty-five hour shift."

"We all worked hard yesterday," Drake said, sweeping his gaze to encompass everyone. "All of us. And, in recognition, I think we'll forgo battlestation drill today."

Laughter, warm, unrestrained, and utterly genuine. The last day might have been harrowing, but it looked like it had been worth it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

While McDonald questioned Drake's stunt with the storm (she was still unaware that the incident had arisen spontaneously) she could not deny its effect. Whereas before she had passed some sullen, out-of-place people in the corridors, today she only saw happy crewmen; and in the mess hall, where she usually found everyone huddled into groups of their old shipmates, there were now people from every ship and all the landsmen mingling. They had been drawn together by a common trial and they were well on their way towards changing from a body of strangers into a crew.

The subtlest change, but perhaps the most telling, was the uniforms. In the early days of space exploration, every ship had been given a unique mission crest to identify it by. After the _Enterprise_ saved Earth from the _V'Ger_ space probe, Starfleet had adopted that ship's symbol for the entire service, in recognition of that crew's triumph. While there were no longer individual markings for ships, most crewmen were fiercely proud of their vessels (those few that weren't often belonging to unhappy ships) and they would celebrate their position in their own way. On some ships this meant a badge of some kind to be worn in addition to the standard delta (if the captain was lenient enough with the dress code), while others had to restrict themselves to marking their off duty and shore clothes. _Endeavour_, not being the strictest ship in the fleet when it came to uniforms, had the custom of wearing the ship's name embroidered on the right breast.

Before, the name had only appeared on the uniforms of the old Endeavours, for the new-comers, still feeling out of place and perhaps even unwelcome, hadn't dared to augment their uniforms so. Now, as she looked around, McDonald saw more crewmen wearing the name than not, and she imagined that those who still didn't have the embroidery were waiting for someone handy with a needle to do it for them.

She was of mixed feelings about the Endeavour tag appearing on uniforms. On the one hand it was good to see the crew so close, but on the other it was a breach of protocol. McDonald was torn, unsure of whether to come down on the crewmen, or perhaps to add the name to her own uniform. She decided that she would get Drake's view on the matter. She knew what he would say, of course, but at least hearing the words from him would let her write the whole thing off as the captain's eccentricity, and she was sure there was an appendix at the back of the book to cover that.

McDonald joined the line for food, and when she got to the front she found that the crewman serving her dinner (a man with Endeavour on his apron, she noticed) was one of the people who had served the table at the captain's feast. He smiled at her while he was spooning out the mashed potato, string beans, and chicken fillet in gravy. "Not quite up to the standard of what you had before, sir."

"Looks delicious," she assured him.

It actually tasted better than it looked, and McDonald found herself thinking about Chef McDuff. He might be an irritating person, she mused, but he knew how to get the best out of his kitchen.

Out of the corner of her eye she observed some people suddenly jump to their feet, but she paid it almost no attention. It was only when the vast majority of the mess were standing, with those that weren't being prodded and encouraged to do likewise, that she tilted her head up and took notice.

The reason for this sudden display of attention was that Alix Nain had stumbled into the mess hall, bleary-eyed and yawning widely, and the crew were going to show their respects. McDonald followed their example, and as she did so she reflected on the curious nature of the lower deck. She had seen the kind of loyalty that crewmen would show to their captains – following them from ship to ship, working like slaves for them, throwing themselves onto grenades for them, and cheering like mad whenever their beloved captain was rewarded. She had seen the opposite: seen crews who would grumble through the most menial task, desert at the first opportunity, and who only cheered when their captain was brought low. Sometimes their feelings were understandable – was it any wonder that Kirk's crews loved him so? Other times it was plain mysterious – incompetent captains worshiped, men praised by the admiralty despised. The lower decks were strange indeed, but they knew what they liked and what they disliked.

The old Endeavours would throw themselves on their swords for their captain; that much had been plain to McDonald from the moment that she had come aboard; and after this last run, and with stories of the ship's past adventures now taking on greater significance with the new hands – for she was _their_ ship now, too – the commander expected that she would soon see that kind of devotion throughout the vessel.

Fine, she had expected that. Drake was an extremely popular captain. What she had not expected was the reverence the crew had for Alix Nain. The helmsman was very strange, and she had displayed certain character traits that McDonald could only describe as evil, but those things did not seem to matter to the hands; they adored her.

The young lieutenant finished yawning, rubbed her tired eyes, and slowly became aware that there was an unnatural hush in the mess. She forced her heavy lids to open as far as they could go, and was stunned to see near enough fifty men and women standing at attention and facing her.

"What's going on?"

"Paying our respects, ma'am," said Old Cummings, as he was affectionately known, being both the oldest crewman aboard and the oldest Endeavour of them all – he had been a young man when Captain Murdock had had the ship.

Alix looked absolutely baffled. "Sit down, please. I only came in for a bite to eat."

She found a plate of food pressed into her hands, brought straight to her by the server, and kindly shipmates guided the fatigued lieutenant to a seat at McDonald's table, they feeling that she might be more comfortable sitting with another officer than with regular crew. In that they could not have been more mistaken – Alix loved the lower decks, and although she wore a rank bar and was in charge of the helm department, she didn't consider herself to be any kind of an officer. Usually, she would have been happier by far to sit with her friends like Old Cummings or Joe Friedman, but right now she was glad that she wasn't amongst them. She was so tired that she would be lousy company.

McDonald was looking at her – Alix wished that she would stop. Her eyes had fluttered closed again, and she only knew that the commander's attention was focused on her because of Kana's whisper in her ear. She would have given control over to her other self right now so that she could go back to sleep, but she was too weary to bring about the Change.

"Why were they standing, Vicki?" Alix asked tiredly, spooning potato into her mouth. She sounded old and fatigued and very confused.

"They respect you."

Alix laughed at the notion. "Why?"

"Why? Because you're a brilliant helmsman. You got the ship through the storm."

"Oh yeah."

McDonald placed a sensitive hand on the girl's shoulder. "I think you're very tired, Lieutenant."

"I think I am, Vicki." She finished off her mashed potato, took a few bites of the chicken, and smiled lopsidedly. "I'm gonna go back to bed."

She rose and started to make her way out, but couldn't quite manage a straight line. Immediately, a pair of old shipmates appeared and between them they supported the lieutenant and guided her carefully, tenderly, away to her quarters.

McDonald was left to think about the mentality of the lower deck again, and to wonder how she could come to be loved by the crew as Drake and Alix were. She was starting to see how necessary it was.

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The captain was to address all hands from the ship's main recreation room, and as many of the five hundred and twenty-one strong crew that could fit into the room were squeezed in when he mounted the podium with his officers. A full day had passed since the ordeal of the ship's passage through the storm, and everyone was alert and refreshed, even Alix who stood proudly at her friend's left hand.

"We've come a long way since we left spacedock," said Drake, "in more ways than one. When we started out on this voyage we were five hundred men and women, packed together on a starship and sent out into the night. Since then we have been brought together by trial and experience. We've become a crew; and I am proud of each and every one of you; I'm proud to be your captain. And I'm especially proud to call you all Endeavours."

A short speech, but it was met with an overwhelming roar of approval. Of course, by now there wasn't a soul aboard who wouldn't call himself or herself an Endeavour, but hearing it from the lips of the captain was the ultimate confirmation, and they felt a warm glow of pride in their hearts. For the people who had come from other ships, the unhappy memories of the past were swept away; they belonged to another life and might just have been a bad dream for all the significance they had now. The landsmen too had cause to feel proud, for they were landsmen no longer.

Harrow, Hope, and Ling had attended, partly out of common courtesy and partly because they had felt that something of great importance was to be said. Harrow understood that what they had heard had been meant for the ship's company, and that to those people Drake's words had been some of the most beautiful ever uttered, but they meant rather less to him; Ling was disgusted by the entire spectacle, and Hope's feelings were neatly summed up by something that she whispered to herself upon walking out of the hall: "I wish he'd been talking to me."

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"_How interesting that a few fairly meaningless words can have such an effect on the masses," _observed Kana Nain. _"Even more interesting that some men can make speeches of only a few words and still whip up a frenzy of excitement, while others can speak for days and no one listens."_

"_I'm sorry, were you saying something?"_

"_Hysterical. My point is this: your friend was born at the wrong time. Had he popped his head into the world as an ancient Roman, or as a wealthy European at any time before the nineteenth century, he could have rallied great armies and crushed nations beneath his heel. That might have been interesting."_

"_Yes. And I'm sure you would have loved to play the little devil on his shoulder if that had been the case."_

Kana sent a sideways glance at her better self, and a despairing little snort. _"That is something else that I don't understand about you, Alix. You are respected, people obey you without thought, and if you wanted to you could be worshiped and adored. You have me to help you. And yet you have never really taken advantage of any of this. When we were independent you could have crewed a fleet of ships with the pirates and privateers that wanted to serve you. We could have swept across the sector and brought all those isolated little colonies together under our banner."_

"_Is that what you wanted?"_

"_I've always wanted to be a queen."_

Alix shuddered. _"Your dream. I hate responsibility."_

"_Who wants that?" _Kana showed her teeth._ "It was the beheadings that I was interested in. Also having people hung, drawn and quartered – that was always amusing."_

"_You're going to give me nightmares again, thank you."_

"Lieutenant Nain. A word please."

It was Ling, coming rushing up after her, puffing as he had had to run to overtake the fast walking lieutenant. She turned to greet him with a civil smile, but it disappeared from her face almost instantly when she saw the expression of near indignation that the man was wearing. Kana stepped into view from around her shoulder, her ghostly red eyes seeing the same thing that Alix's saw, and a twisted grin divided her face. _"Let me give him nightmares, Alix."_

"_Don't tempt me."_

"Yes, Mr. Ling? What can I do for you?"

"I understand that you are close with the captain, that you are one of his better friends?"

"Yeah."

He looked at her sternly. "In that case, I would like you to put it to him that his treatment of the distinguished Mr. Harrow has thus far been shocking – barbaric."

"_Please let me get involved. He's asking for it."_

"In what way?"

"In every way!" He seemed stunned that she even needed to ask the question. "First, the travesty of quarters that Mr. Harrow has been so ungenerously forced into. Common crew quarters, despite what you might have us believe! Second, that inexcusable period of ungodly turbulence that we were all forced to endure – endless shaking throughout the ship, not a moment's peace – you cannot tell me that there was no way that a starship capable of travelling at two thousand times the speed of light could outrun an ion storm! Thirdly, that shocking display this morning, when all hands were mustered to hear the captain speak, and not one word of apology for that ordeal. This is absolutely no way to treat such a highly respected Federation diplomat!"

"_Alix, he is on his hands and knees, begging for it!"_

Very professionally, Alix answered, "I will, of course, convey your impression to Captain Drake. Is there anything else?"

Ling was surprised. "No. Thank you for your time, Lieutenant."

She nodded politely and Ling walked away, feeling uncomfortable. If Alix had been rude or difficult he would have expected that, it being how she had always behaved towards him in the past, but she hadn't; she had listened to him calmly and reasonably. It put him on edge.

He was right to be nervous.

"_Kana."_

"_Yes, Alix?"_

"_Don't let him get a moment's sleep tonight."_

The Destroyer's face lit with wicked delight. _"Count on it."_

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"Will, I have something to say to you."

The captain was on his feet immediately. He had been holding the centre chair, keeping an eye on the ship's progress and enjoying the streaking star field – still the most wonderful sight to a starship's man, even though the storm was now two days in the past. He hadn't expected to see his friend on the bridge, for although it was her shift she was still quite drained, and he had expected her to be sleeping. "Alix. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be…?"

"I'm fine, thank you. I had a very long sleep yesterday and I feel fine, ready to get back to work. In a minute. Right now, Will…"

"Ready room."

"I've just had an uncomfortable talk – no, that's the wrong word, since I didn't really say anything, just listened – an uncomfortable monologue with Mr. Ling. He told me that Harrow was upset with his treatment aboard ship. It's probably just Ling being a pompous prick as usual, but I thought I'd mention it."

Drake sighed and leant against the rim of his desk. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'm glad that you did, Alix. I hate the thought of upsetting Harrow – I respect him. Maybe you could…no. No, that won't do. I'll speak to him myself. Sometimes it's best for the ship's captain to appear in person."

This Drake did, having first changed into a better uniform jacket and having confirmed through Yeoman Hope that the diplomat was at leisure. Mr. Harrow greeted him warmly, poured him a glass of rum from a bottle that he had brought with him, and begged him to take a seat.

"Thank you, sir." He wrapped his hands around the glass but didn't drink any. "Mr. Harrow, it has come to my attention that there might be some elements of the voyage that you are finding difficult."

"Not at all, Captain. What gave you the notion?"

"Words reach my ears, sir."

Harrow smiled gently and with good humour. "Well, it's true that I found the events of a few days ago a little disturbing. I'm not a great traveller, Captain, and I have spent very little time aboard spaceships. I didn't know that it could get so rough. But that's in the past now, and we're sailing smoothly. I'm quite enjoying myself, actually. These voyages through the night…they're quite peaceful, don't you find, Captain?"

"I do. There's nothing as relaxing as a long flight in a comfortable ship. Speaking of, are the quarters we assigned to your satisfaction? _Endeavour_ carries a large crew for a ship of her size, but we might be able to find you a more spacious cabin if you'd like."

"Nonsense! How much space does one man need, Captain?" He swept his arms to encompass the comfortably sized room. "No, no, I'm perfectly content here. My quarters are very cosy, and I am right by the general and my staff. No, I honestly have no complaints."

"Well," sighed Drake, and a smile lit his face, "that is a pleasure to hear. I had been concerned…"

"Mr. Ling is a valuable servant and a skilled aide," said Harrow, certain of where these rumours of dissatisfaction had come from, "but he can be overprotective."

"I see."

This business taken care of, Drake was keen to get back to the bridge, but his glass of rum was untouched, he didn't want to appear ungrateful, and Harrow seemed pleased to have company. He took a sip of his drink and savoured the flavour, waiting for the diplomat to speak.

"I listened to your speech this morning, Captain. It seemed to have a great affect on the ship's crew."

"Thank you, sir; that was the intention."

"Does it mean so much to them, to be called Endeavours?"

To Drake, who had been Starfleet since the day he was born, the question seemed unnecessary. The answer was so obvious, so natural. But he reminded himself that Harrow was not Starfleet, and that he had never been. It was sometimes hard for him to understand, but there was a whole other world out there, one without uniforms and starships. His darling Annabelle belonged to that world, had tried to introduce him to it, but he doubted that he would ever really comprehend it, or be a part of it.

So he answered: "Ship's crews are a community, and people like to know that they belong. We took aboard a great many new hands before setting out on this voyage – more than three hundred of them, in fact – and it's taken a while to integrate them. There's been a lot of division aboard, you see: this group being old Cochranes, that one old Indefatigables, those people landsmen… After our run through the storm there's a lot more closeness, a lot of the dividing lines have been broken, and I just wanted everyone to see that, as far as their captain was concerned, there were no divisions anymore; that they were all Endeavours."

"I had no idea. Of course, I knew that the ship had taken on some new people, and I'd heard a group of crewmen talking about men from the _Albatross_. They sounded pitying."

"Yes. A sad lot the Albatrosses. I don't like to say anything against another captain, but the _Albatross_ has never been a happy ship, as you might know. There have been a great many transfer requests, and her people often desert at the first opportunity. We took aboard a lot of them, and it's taken them all this time to come out of their shells."

This was a fascinating topic of conversation for Harrow. He had never wanted to be a starship officer, but like every man of his generation he had grown up listening to the stories of bold Starfleet explorers. He wanted to learn everything he could for one such man. "What makes an unhappy ship, Captain? I mean, surely all ships are run in the same manner – you all follow the same rule book."

Drake smiled as he explained. "For the most part, yes we do. But rules aboard a starship are flexible things, sir, and you have to remember that on his own ship each captain is God. If a captain likes things to be done a particular way, that is the way they'll be done – especially if he can find a body of officers that agree with his methods."

"Are there many ships like _Albatross_?"

That was an uncomfortable point there. The public image of the Fleet was of perfection – gleaming white brilliance. That was partly a lie, as all public images were. The Starfleet was probably as good as it could be, Drake firmly believed that, but it was still an organization run by humanoids. And all humanoids, from humans to the logical Vulcans, were imperfect.

"You have to remember that there are thousands of ships in the fleet, so there are guaranteed to be some bad apples. Yes, there are unhappy ships out there. You don't hear about them – not unless misery turns to mutiny – but they exist."

"But why? What brings it about?"

He shrugged. "There are lots of theories. Some blame it on ships being sent on long, pointless cruises or blockades; others say that some people just aren't cut out for starship life. There might be an element of truth in those theories."

"You have your own?"

Drake thought before he replied. To another Starfleet officer he would never say what was in his mind now – between uniformed men some things had to remain unsaid. But Harrow was different. He was a civilian, a distinguished guest, and he knew how to take something in confidence. It was fairly safe to be truthful with him.

"I've been on ships all my life – grew up on a deep space explorer. I've seen things from the point of view of the crew, as well as the officers. The men take their lead from the captain. If he's an amiable person, if he doesn't push them too hard, if he rewards them for their efforts and makes them feel respected, then you'll have a happy ship. If, on the other hand, the captain is a tyrant then you can have nothing but misery."

"So you blame the captains?"

"I do. You just have to look at them. Captain Briggs of the _Albatross_, for example. He's sixty-one, has been a captain since he was forty, and he has absolutely no chance of promotion and he knows it. He's bitter and disillusioned. There are others like him. And there are other men, young men, who lack any real skills or leadership ability and try to compensate by bullying the hands into submission."

Drake felt a note of sadness within him when he spoke of Briggs and promotion, reflecting that his own chance of reaching flag-rank were not much greater than they were for that unpopular man. He pushed the thought aside as best he could, but part of it stayed with him. He had always had his heart set on flag-rank, high command, and to think that he might never reach it made him feel unfulfilled.

"Thank you for your insights, Captain," said Harrow. "Very enlightening. There's a lot more to Starfleet than I'd been led to believe. The Diplomatic Corps doesn't always speak of your service in the best light, I'm sorry to say. Uniformed automatons following a rulebook is one description I've heard. I can't wait to get home and tell my friends how wrong they are." He laughed good-naturedly.

"I hope you can set them straight," agreed Drake, finishing up his rum and standing. "Now, if you'll excuse me, sir, I must return to the bridge."

"Of course. Thank you for your time, Captain. Oh, one last thing. I was hoping that I could invite you and your officers to poker tonight, to repay your kind hospitality the other day."

Drake bowed slightly. "That's very generous of you, Mr. Harrow, and I would be delighted to accept."

"Excellent. I have taught the game to General Kravft and he will also be attending. Please bring some of your officers, Captain. Lieutenant Nain would be particularly welcome – I still have to thank her for making our time in the storm as smooth as possible." He paused for a moment. Licked his suddenly dry lips. "Perhaps the other young woman would like to play as well? The one with the dark blond hair and bright blue eyes."

"Lieutenant Wolf?"

"Yes."

There was no great mystery in why Harrow was keen to invite Wolf – the genetically engineered woman was certainly attractive. Drake wondered if he should tell the diplomat that he was wasting his time, that Wolf was practically celibate, but no, that would be too forward, too assuming. "I'll pass the invitation along."

"Thank you, Captain. And I'm sorry that you've been bothered by these rumours. I'll have a word with Mr. Ling."

Drake said nothing to discourage this and left, feeling better now that the matter was resolved. He was about to return to the bridge when it occurred to him that Mr. Harrow wasn't the only V.I.P. that he was carrying, and that it was possible that the Klingons might have issues of their own to raise with him.

He needn't have been concerned. Kravft's great head was glowing jovially when he greeted the captain. "Drake! Ha, ha, ha! What a glorious storm! Such rage, such power, and you ship brushed it aside! Ha, ha, ha."

"You didn't find it at all uncomfortable?"

"Uncomfortable? Impossible! If anything, it was _too_ comfortable. This ship of yours is luxurious. Too much so. You waste space with comforts. Space that could be used to carry more weaponry!"

"I'll pass that along to engineering. So you have no complaints?"

"None."

"Excellent, I'm glad to hear it. I just thought that you should know we've increased speed to make up for lost time, so you'll still be to _In'jara'wa_ within the time we stated."

"Good."

Drake returned to his bridge feeling that he had done his duty by his guests. Everything was exactly as he had left it, the ship running smoothly, and after asking McDonald for Alix's whereabouts he stepped into his ready room to wake her. Alix was indeed asleep – she was much more tired than she had realized – but her body was up and about, or more accurately sprawled on Drake's sofa and reading one of the leather-bound books he kept. _Les Miserables_, he read from the spine, one of his personal favourites, and it seemed that his friend was enjoying it too.

"Have you read it before?"

"No, actually, but I've seen the musical," purred the heated voice. "A pleasant tale."

A joke, he decided, for there was very little at all pleasant in _Les Miserables_. He well recognized this dark side of his friend, and he knew that in this mood her humours became morbid and sinister.

He strove to ignore it and strolled over to his desk while he addressed his friend. "I've had a word with Mr. Harrow. He assures me that everything is fine with him, that it's just his assistant being a little overzealous. Apparently he's overprotective."

"The man is a fool."

Drake hated that low, deep purr, and even more the words that came with it. His friend was such a wonderful, kind individual, and it had always shocked him that this malignant side of her character should exist. He wished that it didn't, and he hated to be around it.

"He's a little high and mighty, and he's becoming tiresome. What I just said never leaves this room, understood?"

"Oh, clearly."

Promises from Alix Nain were never, ever binding – entirely subject to her whims at any given moment. When her dark side got involved there was even less chance of her keeping her word, as a dismayed Drake knew only too well. However, for once, Kana Nain fully intended to be as good as her word. Alix had given her free reign to terrorize Ling tonight and there was little that she would enjoy more.

Perching himself on the edge of his desk and looking over at her, Drake said, "By the way, Alix, we've been invited to play poker with Mr. Harrow this evening. I've already accepted the invitation. I hope it's not inconvenient?"

"Not in the slightest, Will," assured Kana, one of her nasty smiles appearing. A thought floated through her mind: _The perfect alibi._

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As an alibi for Kana's behaviour it was indeed flawless. The poker game was attended not only by Harrow and the captain, but by McDonald, Wolf, Chief Fran and Kravft as well. They all gathered around the diplomat's small dining table, drinking the rum that was liberally provided and playing draw poker until well into the graveyard shift.

Alix had very peculiar luck with cards. While the others around her always received hands that were of much the same strength each game, hers were infinitely variable, but mostly bad. For seven games she lost money steadily, never holding anything better than a pair of sevens, and it reached a point where her opponents started to feel bad – for they were playing for real money, not chips. Then, on the eighth game, the cards fell perfectly for Alix, a straight flush in spades, and she won everything, taking both Fran and McDonald completely out of the game. The match continued with the five remaining players, and Alix resumed her steady losses, until the very last hand dealt when they went all in and she won the entire pot, every penny of everyone's money.

While Harrow was entertaining his guests, Ling went over a few notes he had made during the earlier negotiations – Kravft had expressed an interest in returning to the table tomorrow – and satisfied that he had refreshed the key points in his mind, he went to bed. He was feeling in a sour mood, which was not entirely uncommon for him, although this was a bad mood even by his standards. He had never been well liked aboard the _Endeavour_ – indeed, the ship's hands had always considered him to be something of a trial – but until today he hadn't been actively despised. Unfortunately for him, more than one crewman had overheard his talk with Nain earlier, and it had spread like wildfire. He had received hard glances and uncivil remarks all day, and it irked him. He was the diplomat's assistant! Didn't the ship's people know how to treat a man in his position?

Too tired to give his anger the fuel it needed to properly blaze, Ling laid down on his bunk – moderately comfortable, although he was bound and determined to believe otherwise – and shut his eyes.

Kana, her timing rarely anything but flawless, chose that moment to slide her ghostly form into the room. Although she was usually invisible and inaudible to everyone except Alix, the Destroyer could present herself to other people when she desired to, and at this particular moment she did.

"_Wake up, Mr. Ling. Rise and shine."_

The voice was strangely familiar, but at the same time he was convinced that he had never heard it before. Tiredly, his eyes fluttered open, he rolled onto his back, and got the fright of his life. There, just centimetres from him, was the most horrible face he had ever seen – skin as pale as death, red eyes blazing like an inferno, long sharp teeth hungry for blood. A yelp of terror passed his lips, and hot laughter from hers.

"_Ah, Mr. Ling. I have so much to show you…"_

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The next day, a pale, shaken, and utterly exhausted Ling was in the security office, harassing anyone who wore a uniform. "An outrage! An intolerable offence! I'll have her commission for this!"

"Calm down," instructed Hannah Wolf, "and tell me what has happened."

She had come in that morning hoping for a few quiet hours in her office to dispel the throbbing in her head, before she was due to take her place at navigation on the bridge. So much for that hope.

Ling did not calm at all, but he did start to explain. "It's that lieutenant of yours, that Nain!"

"What about her?"

"She came into my room last night. Tormented me. I'll see her ruined for this!"

Wolf's communications skills were adequate at best. She often had trouble following what other people were saying, subtle nuances and hidden meanings always escaped her, and when emotion started churning with words all she heard was noise. So far, out of everything that Ling had said, all she had heard was 'Nain' and 'room'. "What are you talking about?"

Seeing that the predator was having difficulty understanding him, Ling adopted the slow, deliberate speech of one talking to a particularly dim child. "She came into my quarters during the night. Said all kinds of things." Emotion flooded into him again. "Terrible, terrible things. Showed me…" tears came into his eyes and Wolf looked away, feeling not sympathy but contempt for weakness.

"When did this happen?"

"It began at midnight."

"Midnight?"

"Yes, midnight! Zero hundred hours. You can tell the time, I assume?"

Wolf could – it was one of her proudest achievements. "At midnight Lieutenant Nain was playing poker with Mr. Harrow, myself, and four others."

"No she wasn't, she was tormenting me!"

"Mr. Ling, you are wrong."

"Where is the captain? I demand to see the captain!" His arms flew in the air and his face turned quite red.

"What?"

A finger jabbed towards her chest. He was very lucky that she didn't snap it off. "If you won't investigate this then I demand to speak to the captain. I won't allow this injustice against me to go unpunished. Now where is Drake?"

Wolf felt that she was being challenged, and she very nearly leapt at the challenger; very nearly dug her claws and fangs into his soft body. She was just barely able to hold her instincts in check, and only by gripping onto the underside of her desk so tightly that her fingers left clear indentations in the metal.

"Sit down, Mr. Ling. I will look into this matter. Lieutenant Nain, please report to the security office."

Alix arrived a few minutes later, looking concerned, as she hadn't been summoned to the security office since Wolf had taken over as head of department. She wondered what she had done. "What's up, Wolf? What's the problem?"

"You know what the problem is, Nain!"

"Ling? You look terrible, what happened to you?"

He laughed with outrage. "What happened? _You_ kept me awake all night, feeding horrible thoughts into my head!"

"Huh?"

"You were in my room! You said these things and you…you made me see things! I know it was you!"

The young woman stared at Ling with a what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look written on her face.

"What makes you think it was Lieutenant Nain?" Enquired the security chief.

"Because she had the same stupid spiky hair and the red eyes!" Ling spat, gesturing towards Alix's face. "Oh her skin was white, and she had fangs, and her eyes glowed, but it was definitely Nain!"

"Ling, you're hysterical –"

"Shut up! Shut up! I'll have your head, Nain!"

Determining to ignore the insane ranting, Alix faced Wolf and said reasonably, "You know it's impossible, right? I was with you guys all evening. You carried me back to my cabin yourself, Wolf."

That was true. Alix had had slightly too much of Mr. Harrow's rum, and she had needed a hand in finding a straight line. She had certainly been in no fit state to sneak off and upset Ling and Wolf knew for a fact that Alix had not left the room before then.

A thought trundled slowly through her simple mind, and the security chief suggested: "Maybe you used the computer. Holograms. Your pranks are legendary."

"Okay, fine, I admit that. But you know me, Wolf. I might play a joke on someone, but I always come clean and admit it afterwards. Besides, this kind of torture isn't my style. You know that."

She did, and more convincingly she did not detect the sour reek of a lie on Alix. Her sense of smell was exceptional, and while it was not quite infallible there were some things that she just could not miss. She nodded. "Very well."

"What?" Ling raged. "You're just going to let her go? Just like that? I _know_ that she did this!"

"Medical team to the security office."

"Are you serious?"

"Bring sedatives."

The nurses arrived and pumped a shot of something into the fitful Ling. He fell down peaceably on the gurney and they wheeled him off to sickbay, the security guards silently laughing at him as he went. Wolf reclined in her chair and looked at the human helmsman. "I am sorry for that, Alix."

"No problem," said the stunned girl. "Can I go now?"

"Of course."

Out in the corridor she turned towards Kana, and in a thoroughly shocked voice she whispered, _"What did you do to him?"_

Her counterpart smiled demonically. _"Let's just say that I put the fear of God into him."_

Ling was much quieter thereafter, and a source of perpetual amusement for the crew, who delighted in the retelling of the man's breakdown. Although Alix tried several more times to get specifics out of Kana, she never discovered what her companion had done to so utterly torment the man, and maybe that was just as well. Alix rarely dreamt, and when she did her dreams were always nightmares. More often than not these were brought about by Kana's behaviour, and knowing too much about Ling's torture might have given her sleepless nights of her own.

As it turned out, such nights were going to be plentiful in her future.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

"Good morning, Captain. I hope I didn't wake you?"

"Not at all, Admiral. We start the day shift at oh-eight hundred on _Endeavour_. What can I do for you?"

The friendly face of Admiral McCaffrey filled the bridge view screen. As commander of Starfleet's operations in the sector, McCaffrey was a busy individual, but he rarely gave the impression of being so. He was perpetually composed; the sort of admiral that Drake hoped he would be when he received that longed for step. "I know that you're under orders to transport Diplomat Harrow and General Kravft to Klingon space as quickly as possible, but I'm afraid you're going to have to deviate from your course."

"Sir?"

The admiral folded his hands on his expensive desk. "We've lost contact with the Herminie colony, a small outpost in your sector. They stopped transmitting halfway through a routine communication last week, and since then we haven't been able to raise them at all. A probe has done a long-range fly-by, but it didn't find anything. Your orders are to divert to Herminie, find out what's going on, and lend them any aid they might require."

Drake leant over Wolf's shoulder, and on her navigation board he could see their current course and the location of the planet. It was no small distance out of their way, but the ship had been proceeding at relatively low warp and so long as the problem took no more than a couple of days to solve they could make up the lost time.

"Understood, Admiral."

"Probably nothing more sinister than a broken subspace radio," the admiral said with a shrug in his voice, "but they're Federation citizens and we're obliged to look into the matter. Shouldn't take you more than a day or so."

"I hope not, sir."

"McCaffrey out."

"Alix, change course and accelerate to seven point five. Commander McDonald, have Mr. Harrow and General Kravft assemble in conference room one. I'll let them know of the change to our orders."

Harrow perfectly understood the importance of the diversion, and he urged the captain to devote as much time as was necessary to solving the people of Herminie's problem. The general, on the other hand, was a little less reasonable. He had understood that this was a priority assignment, that he would be carried to _In'jara'wa_ at best possible speed. There were urgent matters to be discussed, matters that required his presence in the High Council.

The captain listened patiently to his little speech and then said reasonably, "I fully understand. I don't imagine that this detour will take more than a day. If we then run at warp nine we'll still get you to _In'jara'wa_ on time."

"Can this ship do that?" Harrow asked. "Warp nine is frighteningly fast. I thought only the newest ships could manage it."

Drake felt a bit of a stab at the mention of 'newest ships' but he resolved not to let it show. "It'll be a bit of a strain on the engines, but _Endeavour_ has flown faster, and for longer periods than we're talking about here."

The promise mollified Kravft and he went away feeling contented. Drake returned to the bridge, hoping with all his heart that Herminie would take no longer than he had said.

It wouldn't, but for reasons other than the ones Drake was considering.

From the moment they entered orbit it became apparent that something was terribly wrong on the planet. No greeting hail met the ship, even after she had settled into geosynchronous orbit above the main colony site and sent down several hails of her own. A broken transmitter could not account for the planet's complete silence, as a standard hand unit could reach a ship in orbit. Someone should have answered.

"This doesn't feel right," Drake muttered, observing the planet on the screen, apparently stationary for the _Endeavour_ was moving at the same speed as the world's rotation.

"It feels very wrong," was Alix's opinion, and to Kana she asked: _"What are you sensing?"_

The Destroyer looked troubled, and all that she would say to Alix was, _"You had better harden your heart and prepare for the worst."_

"Still no response to hails?"

"No, sir," said McDonald, the communications officer as well as Number One. She was working her boards, scanning for even the faintest signal, but all of the subspace bands remained utterly silent. Not so much as a whisper.

"Damned peculiar." He considered for a moment more. "Yellow alert. Landing party. Lieutenant Wolf and four of your men, with me."

"Will," cried Alix, leaping to her feet. He stopped and turned back, seeing fear and misery on his friend's face. "You might need me."

Drake nodded – Alix was worth a dozen crewmen in any dire situation. "Three men, Wolf. Let's find out what's happened here."

They didn't have to wait very long to find out. The moment they materialized from the transporter beams it became perfectly clear. The odour of rancid flesh assaulted the landing party's noses the instant the beams shut down; all around them there was blood, staining everything like a coat of badly laid paint. Bodies were slumped in the colony's streets, still lying where they had fallen. Hundreds of bodies. The stench was beyond belief.

Alix Nain had stood on battlefields before, she had stood amongst slaughtered armies, ankle deep in blood, no one but the dead to keep her company; even those experiences did not prepare her for this. Then the dead had been soldiers, people who had known the risks, who had gone off to fight knowing that they would probably die. No one on Herminie had been a soldier. These people had been simple farmers, building a new life for themselves on a pristine world. They had come without weapons, knowing that none would be needed on this peaceful planet. When death had come for them, they hadn't even had the ability to fight back.

She wandered in a daze amongst the wreckage of the colony. Dimly she was aware of Wolf organizing her people into search groups, of Drake hailing the ship to send down additional landing parties, but these things were background noise to her. She walked amongst the dead, staring at each and every body in turn. She had seen and caused so much death in her life that she had thought it incapable of affecting her anymore, but how wrong she had been. Amongst the gutted remains of a house she found the mangled body of a little girl, her chest cleaved open by a powerful blow. She looked so peaceful, her eyes closed, her face expressionless. She might have been sleeping, if it weren't for the blood and her icy skin.

Alix fell down onto her knees and cradled the dead child in her arms, weeping uncontrollably. She had never seen a dead child before, had never wanted to, and the sight of it shocked her to her core.

"No. She was so young. She hadn't even lived!"

Kana Nain watched her host's grief in silence. She did not share her counterpart's feelings, but she understood Alix's pain and she respected it. She looked away and saw two more groups of Starfleet personnel beam down from the ship – six security officers, six medics. The humans still hoped of finding survivors, but Kana knew that to be a futile hope.

"Just a child," wept Alix, oblivious.

"_Alix, let me have control."_

Her host didn't hear a word that she said. She pulled the dead child closer to her and cried into its bloody hair, unaware of the world around her. For a long time she was incapable of doing anything but crying and feeling pain. Slowly, very slowly, she began to regain some of her control. "Just a child, Kana. She was just a child. So much potential… Who would do something like this?"

"_Please, Alix, let me have control."_

"Kana…"

"_You're in no state to do anything, Alix, and the crew needs us. Let me take over."_

The Change came, but it was more difficult than usual, Alix's grief-stricken mind refusing to let go at first, resisting the Change. Eventually Kana felt the heat rush through her being, felt the sensations of being physical, but for once they brought her no pleasure. Slaughter like this meant nothing to Kana, but her host's grief did. Kana loved Alix as she never had anyone before, and to see her so unhappy deeply affected the Destroyer. She gently lay the poor deceased child down amongst the wreckage of her former home and went in search of Drake.

"Spread out," the captain was calling. "Tricorders on maximum sensitivity. Report any signs of life to myself or Lieutenant Wolf."

"They won't find any."

"You've been crying, Alix."

Kana wiped at her face, still damp from the tears her host had shed. "Yes. There are no survivors to be found. I'm sorry, Will."

"_No one?"_ Alix gasped. _"Are you sure?"_

"_Yes. I can sense no life here. Everyone is dead. It's better that way."_

"_That is the most monstrous thing you have ever said!"_

"_No, Alix, it's not!"_ She snapped back._ "It's one of the kindest. Think. Would you want to be a survivor? Would you want to live with the memory of what happened here? I know you have nightmares – think of this one. It's better that there were no survivors."_

"We'll keep looking," said Drake firmly. He didn't believe his old friend – didn't want to believe her. _Someone_ had to have escaped this butchery.

"Of course. May I share an observation with you, Will?"

"What is it?"

"This was the work of Klingons."

Her accusation shocked the captain. "That can't be. The Klingons are our allies – our friends."

"Nevertheless." She walked amongst the corpses, gesturing as she spoke. "This gash is the result of a powerful impact from a _mek'leth_ sword, this head was decapitated by a _bat'leth_, and notice the three puncture wounds here, all perfectly in line and the same distance apart, one much bigger than the other two, the result of a _d'k'tagh_ dagger. The evidence is right at your feet, Captain."

"Alix!"

"I'm sorry – bad choice of words. Order Kravft down here. He can confirm what I've said."

The general arrived some minutes later. "What happened here?"

"A massacre," said Kana Nain, greeting him with a belligerent stare. "These people were slaughtered by Klingons."

"Impossible! Klingons do not attack defenceless outposts! It is butchery. It is without honour. The very accusation is an outrage!"

"Inspect the bodies, General. Look at the wounds they have received. See the effects of Klingon steel on human flesh." Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "Speak that way to me again, and join the fallen."

Kravft had never felt so afraid as when he heard those words, saw the death in Nain's red eyes. He obeyed her instructions and examined the dead. Their wounds were only too familiar to a man who had fought as often as he had.

"Well?"

"These wounds were caused by Klingon blades. But no Klingon would do this! To kill defenceless women and children…it is without honour! It would be to cast one's soul to the Fek'lhr. It is…" Rage choked his throat and words failed him.

Kana stood right next to him, her eyes drilling into him, showing no mercy. "It was Klingons. Klingons destroyed these people. Klingons watered this ground with blood. You know it."

The general's great head dipped in acknowledgement of the truth.

Drake exploded. "We're supposed to be allies! Working together for a better future! We've given your people aid, saved you from extinction! And this is how you repay us? With this bloodbath!"

"It wasn't the Empire, Will."

Now neither Drake nor Kravft had any idea what was going on. "But you just said – "

"I said Klingons! The High Council and the Empire had nothing to do with this. They wouldn't be so foolish."

"What makes you so sure?"

She simply looked at him and said, "Trust me."

He did, utterly instinctively, as did anyone else within earshot. The words had not been a suggestion but an order, and it was one that could not be disobeyed. Kana had immense natural authority.

"The Empire wouldn't leave behind people to monitor, to wait for us to come and see our reaction to their massacre."

"What?"

"In the mountains behind us. Don't look, Will! In those mountains is an observation post. We're being watched."

"How can you be sure? Tricorder doesn't detect anything. Minerals in the rocks are scattering the scan."

"I can sense it."

Kana looked up at the sky. A storm was blowing in from the west, dark purple clouds, heavy with rain and the threat of lightning. Discretely, she fed power into the storm, accelerating it and building its rage. It would strike the mountains in a few more hours, right when she wanted it to.

"Keep the others working normally, Will. I'm going to cut up into the mountains; check my hunch."

"I will accompany you."

"No, General, you won't."

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Kana Nain scaled the mountain face, moving with a speed and ease that no human could have possibly matched. She could have travelled faster still, using her power to teleport instantaneously to the Klingon camp, but she didn't. She needed to take her time getting to her destination, otherwise people would be suspicious. She also had to wait for the storm to hit. The storm would hide her exotic powers from the landing party's tricorders, and the sensors on the orbiting starship. Kana was going to dish out justice Destroyer style.

Long before she reached her destination roaring winds and driving rain began to batter the mountain, slowing her progress to a crawl. The rain was by far the worst, falling so hard and so fast that it was an almost solid sheet of freezing water that struck Kana right in the face every time she tried to take a step, making breathing difficult and progress nearly impossible. For a few more minutes she tried pressing on into the wind, before patience deserted her. "To hell with this!"

Kana materialized from a blinding flash of red light in the centre of the Klingon encampment, and it was definitely Kana that appeared, she having manipulated the physical appearance of her host's body to match her own. So it was with a glowing-eyed stare and a flash of fangs that she greeted the surprised Klingons, her long red cape flying about wildly in the storm winds despite being heavily soaked through.

One of the Klingons barked something that Kana couldn't make out, but the meaning of which became immediately clear. Disruptors were levelled and erupted into a great barrage of spitting fire. Blast after blast of deadly green energy poured into and through Kana, her body as insubstantial as a cloud of smoke. She stood there with her arms folded, wondering how long it would take the Klingons to realize that they were incapable of doing her any harm. Would they work it out at all, or would their power packs run out first?

She decided not to bother waiting to find out, and launched an attack of her own. A deafening roar of thunder erupted directly overhead and a shaft of brilliant white lightning struck her foes, putting an end to their capers.

The remaining Klingons attacked _en mass_, but they had no chance at all of defeating a foe as powerful as Kana. Her power was limited only by her imagination, and when it came to ways of killing things, Kana's imagination was pretty much infinite. Optimistic fools with knives or swords found their blades leaping from their hands and plunging into their own hearts, disruptor bolts flew from gun barrels, only to curve back and strike their firers. Kana conjured a globe of energy and hurled it like a baseball into one group of Klingons, the orb exploding like a grenade and shredding their bodies. One Klingon managed to sneak around behind her, and might have been able to get a slice at her spine (a futile move anyway) if only he hadn't roared out a challenge at the last possible second. Kana spun around, fast as a flash, and held out her hand. The man paused in mid-lunge, hovering in the air for a fraction of a second, before every cell in his body flew apart in completely different directions. It created a horrible, bloody mess; Kana was utterly delighted.

The slaughter continued, and despite the obvious hopelessness of their situation the Klingons continued to fight dutifully. They were cut down mercilessly by the Destroyer, who struck with her terrible powers again and again, until only one Klingon was left standing – the same man who had first ordered the attack on her. Overhead, the storm was nearly spent, the rain had died away entirely and the wind had settled down to a much less raging blow.

Kana strode through the devastation, grabbed the stunned Klingon by the front of his leather armour and pushed him to the edge of the mountain. She held him over the long plunge down into the colony he had helped destroy and simply stared at him, her red eyes burrowing into his, reading his every thought, his every reaction. He was terrified, utterly terrified. Not of dying, for no Klingon was, but of what waited for him beyond this life. He knew what he had done on Herminie, he had had no time to redeem himself since, and he knew that the gates of Sto'Vo'Kor were forever closed to him.

She brought about the Change, relinquishing control to her human host and stepping away. _"Your prisoner. Do with him as you will."_

It was Alix's turn to stare the Klingon in the eyes, to see the tremendous fear in him, further increased by the sudden change in the appearance of his captor. She thought of the atrocities that this Klingon had committed. Thought of the little girl whom she had seen dead in the village. She had no way of telling who had killed her, and perhaps that person was already dead or perhaps he wasn't even here, but she decided that this Klingon could take the blame.

Kana's evil was a rage, a tremendous heat; Alix's was arctic. Every trace of passion, every iota of human feeling left her in an instant, and the Klingon found himself looking into eyes as cold and merciless as the depths of space. He knew immediately that there was no future for him, and he was not to be surprised.

"Gre-Thor awaits you," Alix informed him, and then she let go.

It was wrong, but it felt so right, and at that moment that was all that mattered to her. She turned away from the edge and began to search the bodies of the fallen, looking for anything that might give her a clue as to who these Klingons were. Unsurprisingly, she found nothing. There were no house markings on their uniforms or weapons, nothing that would distinguish them.

Her cold, practical mind saw the logic in this. Someone out there didn't want peace with the Federation. There were a lot of Klingons who still thought that the peace treaty was a bad idea; whoever this one was, he was prepared to go one step further. This attack on Herminie demanded a response, and as soon as Starfleet acted those militant Klingons would come forward and decry the Federation's unprovoked actions. They would loudly proclaim that there had been no incident on Herminie, that no Klingon would ever act so dishonourably, and with Starfleet possessing no greater proof than some Klingon corpses (which could have come from anywhere – could even have been _arranged_ to support Starfleet's action) they would be believed. It was clever, she acknowledged, and it occurred to her that throwing the only survivor to his death might, retrospectively, have been a mistake.

A low moan reached her ears and Alix hunted for the source of the sound. It was a wounded Klingon, one of the ones whose knife Kana had turned against its owner. In this instance her aim had been slightly off, and while the blade was buried hilt-deep into the Klingon's chest it had not caused a mortal wound – Klingon bodies being remarkably resistant to injury, possessing multiple redundancies in their biological systems, allowing them to shrug off injuries that would incapacitate lesser species.

Alix crouched down beside him and slowly wrapped her fingers around the dagger's hilt. "I imagine you're in a lot of pain. If I twist this blade, you will die. Is that what you want?"

Mutely, the Klingon nodded.

"Tough."

She pulled the Klingon to his feet and marched him down the mountain.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

There was nothing that could be done for Herminie. Drake sent his report to Starfleet Command and learnt that a transport was to be dispatched to take the bodies home. The _Endeavour_ remained in orbit for a further solemn day, and after the sun had set over the colony Drake ordered the ship to resume course for _In'jara'wa_.

It was a changed ship that made its way into Klingon space, for although the crew remained united and committed to their work the _Endeavour_ was no longer a happy ship. Too many people had seen the horrors of the colony, and there wasn't a soul aboard who hadn't heard the story at least second hand. The mood aboard was sombre, positively dark in some corners. The attack on Herminie was an atrocity and everyone aboard wanted to find the people responsible and serve out some justice.

Interestingly, there was little or no anger towards their Klingon guests. Kravft and Grownel were known aboard the ship, they were practically honorary Endeavours, and the hands felt sympathetically towards them. Everyone had heard Kravft's prayers for the dead, the real horror and misery there had been in the giant general, and they held nothing against him.

The third Klingon, under intense guard in the brig, they had entirely different feelings for. Indeed, the unprecedented security deployed around the detention facility was not to keep the prisoner in his cell, but to keep him from coming to harm at the hands of the vengeful crew.

So far, the prisoner had proved entirely uninformative. He had clapped his mouth closed as soon as he had been brought aboard the ship, and he hadn't opened it since. Kravft and Grownel had tried every interrogation technique that they knew, and that Drake would allow (he steadfastly refused to permit torture), but they had got nothing from him. Threats, warnings of what lay in store for him in the future, promises to restore some shred of his lost honour if he cooperated, all fell on deaf ears.

With Starfleet Command pressuring him for information, Drake decided that it was time for a new strategy. He, Wolf, and Kravft made their daily pilgrimage to the brig, went through the same routine of questions that they had asked every day, and met the same stony silence. He had expected that, and this time he was prepared for it.

"You are a prisoner of war," Drake informed the Klingon – he had debated the point with Kravft a few nights ago, and the general had agreed with his point of view. A state of war existed between the Federation and whatever body of Klingons was behind the massacre. "You have information that I want, and I will have it. You can either tell me what I want to know, or I will extract it from you involuntarily."

Silence.

"Very well. Drake to Commander Sarn."

"Sarn here, Captain."

"I need you to perform a mind meld with our prisoner."

She had long anticipated the order. "I will need an hour to prepare, Captain. It can be difficult to force a meld with an unwilling subject."

"Take whatever time you need, Commander. Inform me when you're ready."

The captain and his two partners left. A minute later, Alix stepped into the brig. Days had passed since Herminie, but no passion had returned to the young woman; she was still as barren and arctic as when she had thrown the Klingon commander to his death. The crew had given her a wide berth these last few days, afraid of what she might do if provoked; so when she walked into the brig and said to the security officers present, "Time for your break," they agreed and left.

The young woman stood outside the cell and observed the frightened Klingon for a long moment. She didn't smile, and her voice was ice. "You remember me, I see." If Wolf had been present then she would have smelt fear coming from the Klingon in great clouds. Alix did not possess the security officer's nose, but she sensed the terror.

A press of a button and the force field winked out. Desperately, the Klingon launched himself at the helmsman. She caught him and threw him back against the wall, the impact jarring his spine and knocking the air out of him. Silently she approached the incapacitated Klingon, cold and merciless.

By the time Sarn arrived to perform the mind meld, Alix was long gone, the security officers were back in their places, and there was no longer a need for the Vulcan's presence; the broken Klingon was only too willing to talk.

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In his private office on Qo'noS, he reviewed the latest revenue figures from his munitions plants. The cold war with the Federation was over, despite the best efforts of patriots to prevent the High Council from embarking on this ruinous alliance, but there were still needs for weapons; there would always be the need for weapons. Some of the border territories were getting rowdy now that the Neutral Zone was coming down and the humanitarian Federation was moving into the sector. They had been looking for some excuse to challenge Klingon rule for decades, and now it was presented. The Empire was badly weakened because of the destruction of Praxis, and the chancellor's new policies were weak. Subject races smelt the death of the Empire, and they were keen to stick their knives in before the blood cooled.

But that would change. It would all change soon enough. The chancellor would be forced to abandon her ludicrous notions of peace, and the century-old cold war would become very hot indeed.

Amongst all the notifications he had received in yesterday's mail was a report from one of his strike parties. It was heavily encrypted, disguised as a tally of crop yields from some unimportant harvest world, but the real message was glorious: mission accomplished.

He had grinned through rotten teeth when he had read it the first time. Details were scarce, of course, but the Federation colony had been utterly decimated. A starship was in the region, and would be diverted to investigate. In fact, he checked his watch, they had probably reached the planet by now.

War was guaranteed.

War and honour and glory.

His display beeped, a message flashing there. It was a pre-programmed reminder that he was to attend Council. A bill was to be debated – some unimportant nonsense about new trading regulations with the humans.

_Not that it'll matter for much longer_, he thought gleefully.

As he pulled on his thick coat against the freezing winds of the capital, he visualised the glory of the upcoming war. Of ships and planets burning, the Federation flag coming down on dozens of planets as the Empire's war fleets swept through human space. He would meet his death in the war, of that he was certain, and it would be an end fitting a Klingon warrior. He would go down with his teeth in the throat of his foe!

No man could ask for more.

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"Our prisoner has started to talk, sir."

"Excellent, Captain. What have you learned so far?"

Drake leant back in his ready room chair and sighed. "Very little, unfortunately. He's willing to tell us everything that he knows, but he knows very little. We have learnt that he is a foot soldier for House Han'tH, that he was assigned to the heavy cruiser _Ik'ta_, under the command of Captain Morsh. He has confirmed that the attack on Herminie was not sanctioned by the High Council, but he can't tell us who did order it. Not for certain, anyway; he's happy to speculate, though."

"Damn," muttered the admiral. "Cold comfort that the High Council didn't send that ship."

"Yes, sir."

"House Han'tH, did you say?"

"Aye."

He knew what Admiral McCaffrey was thinking. House Han'tH had been involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Chancellor Gorkon and derail the Federation-Klingon peace process. They were militantly opposed to any kind of peace treaty or alliance with the Federation, had raised all kinds of fuss when it was first suggested, but they had seemed to calm down in recent months.

"What have your Klingon guests got to say about all this?"

"They can't confirm anything, of course, but Kravft likes to keep a close eye on ship activity in his sectors, and he recalls seeing a heavy cruiser pass through the region."

"Does he believe what your prisoner has to say?"

"Yes. However, I don't know how much faith we can put in that. Houses Kravft and Han'tH are old rivals."

"So you're not sure he's not just happy to pin the blame on his enemies?"

"Exactly, sir."

McCaffrey mulled over the matter. Klingon politics, they gave him a headache. "We'll send out ships to patrol the region, of course, see if we can pick up that cruiser. I don't need to tell you that by now the chances of that are remote."

"No, sir."

"We're putting together a squadron – fourteen ships, under the command of Captain Fox, _Thunderer_. The squadron's duties will be to patrol our other outposts in the sector, in case whoever's responsible attacks again. Your orders are to continue with your voyage to _In'jara'wa_, deliver Mr. Harrow and General Grownel, and then join the squadron."

"Aye, aye, sir."

The admiral sighed heavily. He seemed about twenty years older than the last time Drake had spoken to him. "This is all a goddamn mess, Captain. I just hope we can get it cleared up before we have a war on our hands. McCaffrey out."

There was a long period of silence, during which the captain reflected on all that he had been told. A Starfleet squadron being assembled, and one of such force…the admiralty expected further attacks, that was obvious. He got a sense that there was even more than that, though. They expected war.

Drake looked across his desk to where his friend was sat, and where she had been all along, listening to a message that had been for the captain's ears only. "You heard the orders. Alix, accelerate to maximum warp. I want to join the squadron as soon as possible."

"So do I."


	10. Interchapter 1

**Interchapter**

She was locked into a tube – cell was far too generous a word. She was only small, a mere slip of a girl, but even so there was no room to move, barely enough room to breathe. None of this was accidental. They had known precisely how large she was long before they had taken her, and her confinement had been designed precisely. They didn't _want_ her to be able to move, or breathe, and the drugs that were routinely pumped into her blood and kept her at the verge of unconsciousness prevented her from thinking.

They were inhumane to their captive, but this they did for their own safety, not because they wanted to. They had no wish to see her suffer or die. They were scientists, and she was their subject, an object of great curiosity for them. She was worthless dead.

She was too dangerous for anything but the strictest confinement.

"This is her?" The voice was distant, hazy, although the speaker stood just inches from her, staring her in the face. Dark eyes, thick black eyebrows swept away towards the top of her head; no compassion in her expression, nothing but interest and perhaps disbelief.

"Of course. Can't you see it yourself? Look at the eyes."

"Hardly conclusive."

"Listen to your heart," the other speaker encouraged. "What does it tell you? Look at her. Look past the weak human flesh. See her spirit."

The second speaker was a shadow; she could make out no features, just a vague form standing next to her tube. The voice was like silk, strangely soft and beautiful, despite the terrible things it said.

The first scientist looked towards the second. "You believe her to be the Destroyer?"

"It's not a matter of belief."

The speaker's face floated into view, thin and skeletal, grey eyes cold and reptilian, his pointed ears especially pronounced against his baldhead. A line of pinkish flesh, the scar of a long-ago lab accident that had never healed, traced from the tip of his right eye to his lips. It was a visage that she would never forget.

"It's a matter of fact."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"_Alix! What's wrong?"_

She had awoken with a start, a scream on her lips, her body drenched in sweat. For long, agonizing seconds she didn't know where she was, the memory of the dream still with her; it took several lifetimes for the tube to disappear from around her and her comfortable room on the _Endeavour_ to take its place.

The face that was leaning over changed as well, no longer the terrible Romulan visage, although what replaced it would be of comfort to very few; perhaps only one: glowing red eyes were not to everyone's taste.

"_Alix?"_

"What happened, Kana?"

"_You were dreaming."_

"Dreaming?" What an absurd notion that seemed to her. "It seemed so real."

"_Just a dream, Alix; I assure you."_

She drew in a breath, reassured by her counterpart's words, by the comfortable surroundings. But the Destroyer was not quite right in what she said. "No. Not just a dream. A memory, too."

That made the Destroyer frown. _"A memory? Of what?"_

"R'nari. That ordeal."

Kana nodded, understanding her friend's reaction now. Dr. R'nari, the Romulan scientist who had captured them both when Alix was very young, having discovered the human's great dark secret. The name alone brought back all kinds of memories for the Destroyer, and they were memories that _she_ did not find pleasant. For her host, who at that time had no real understanding of the harshness of reality, it had been utterly horrific. Kana knew that her counterpart was still haunted by what had happened so long ago.

"_Are you all right now?"_

"No," said Alix truthfully. "Better, but not all right."

"_R'nari's dead, Alix. He can't hurt us anymore."_

"I know. It's not him I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about what we saw on Herminie, and what it could mean for the galaxy. We worked so hard for peace, Kana, and now…"

"_If you want peace you must prepare for war. Your own species said as much."_

"Kana…"

"_Alix, there will be peace. The next generation will grow up never knowing the Klingons as anything but friends, and I will be bored senseless by how quiet the quadrant has become. But before that can happen the last of the old guard must be brushed away."_

"You're sure of a bright and happy future?"

"_Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise…"_ She quoted.

The girl grinned, feeling so much better. "I love it when the evil Destroyer is the one to cheer me up."

"_I have considered a career in therapy, but I think listening to other people whine would try my patience."_

Alix chuckled. "Probably. I hope you're right Kana. About the future, I mean. Right now, it looks like things are getting worse, not better."

"_You'll see,"_ Kana said confidently. _"Perhaps you should go back to sleep. Tomorrow could be a long day."_

Alix looked at her comfortable bed, the sleep it offered, and she shook her head. "Nah. I think I'll stay awake."


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Harrow, Ling, Kravft and Grownel were delivered to _In'jara'wa_ on time and they left the ship without ceremony. The fifth member of the party, Yeoman Hope, petitioned to transfer to the starship during the voyage, and since Harrow had no objections Drake welcomed her into the crew. She thanked her former master heartfully for helping her with her dream, and was there to see him leave the ship, but she was glad not to be going with him.

_Endeavour_ remained at _In'jara'wa_ for no longer than it took the engines to cool down from their long run at maximum power, then the ship returned to warp, racing out of Klingon space as fast as she had come in. Fox's squadron had already been on patrol for most of a month, and they had clashed with a Klingon heavy cruiser. Somehow, the fourteen Starfleet ships had failed to either destroy or contain the Klingon cruiser, and it had escaped into its home space, eluding their attempts to track it.

Drake had never had a very high opinion of Captain – now Commodore – Fox, and this display of ineptitude only convinced him that it was vital that _Endeavour_ joined the squadron as soon as possible. He pushed the ship as hard as she could possibly go, and the crew even harder. Free time became practically unheard of on the starship, but this met with no grumbling from the crew. If anything, they thought that Drake was being a little too lenient; they would have gladly pulled double shifts if it meant squeezing just point one more of a warp factor from the _Endeavour_.

Two months after the destruction of Herminie, the _Endeavour_ was back in orbit above the obliterated colony planet. The squadron was already on station, a long line of ships stretching across the night sky, headed by the _Starship Thunderer_. As a display of Federation military might it was extremely impressive: the Excelsior-class pendent ship, four Miranda-class cruisers, and nine frigates of various class and tonnage. Hundreds of phaser banks, thousands of photon torpedoes, the squadron could decimate a starbase.

Hard to believe, then, that they had failed so utterly to capture a single Klingon cruiser.

_Endeavour_ joined the force, slipping into her assigned position right at the back. Drake wasn't surprised to find himself positioned amongst the frigates at the aft of the line. Fox, a few years his senior in the service, had never liked him. This did not greatly concern the captain, as his own respect for Fox was low: the commodore had never distinguished himself, and he had never led a happy crew.

The captain studied the starships as the _Endeavour_ moved into position. The _Thunderer_ was the future of Starfleet, or so Drake had been told. The Excelsior-class was the replacement for the old Constitution-class, to which _Endeavour_ belonged. Larger, faster, and equipped with more sophisticated sensors and computers, it was designed to be the workhorse of the new fleet.

Drake didn't like the new ships, and never had. To him they looked ugly and blocky, not at all like the elegant swanlike form of the _Endeavour_. Obviously it was more important that the ship was functional, but he still felt that some effort could go into making it look pretty. There was something about the Excelsior-class that made it seem malformed: saucer was far too small, engineering hull too stretched out to the rear.

The Mirandas came next. Modern ships as well, although not so new as the Excelsiors. They were essentially just saucer modules with a pair of nacelles attached directly to the underside. The Miranda-class was primarily a science vessel, intended for long-range survey missions and the likes, but it was also a fast and manoeuvrable ship, and it packed similar firepower to the _Endeavour_.

The corvettes were the last to pass: small, simple vessels, very much like a paper dart with nacelles attached to the tips of the wings. Drake's first command had been a corvette and he felt a smile tug at his lips. It didn't go unnoticed.

"Fond memories?" Alix whispered to him, and he nodded.

McDonald looked up from her instruments, holding her earpiece in place. "Commodore Fox is hailing, Captain. He requests permission to come aboard."

"Granted. Lieutenant Wolf, with me."

"Will. Let me come."

Drake loved Alix dearly, but right now he had no time for her. "Can you promise to behave?"

"Yes."

"Can you promise and mean it?"

A much more difficult question, one that actually required some thought from her. "No."

Drake hadn't expected any other reply. "Lieutenant Wolf, with me. Mr. McDonald, you have the con."

Commodore Fox was received aboard the _Endeavour_ by the ship's captain and security chief, no more. He looked thoroughly disappointed and angry, as though he had been slighted. There was nothing in the regulations that said any kind of reception committee was required for a commodore, but he had expected one nevertheless, and in his opinion the lack of a row of officers ready to welcome him aboard was a deliberate insult on the captain's part.

Fox was three years Drake's senior on Starfleet's list of captains, but he had at least fifteen years on him in actual age. Drake was in his mid-forties, although his face retained some of the smoothness of youth and his hair was only lightly speckled with grey. Fox, on the other hand, was over sixty years old, his hair was perfect silver, and his pale skin was heavily wrinkled, making him look even older than he was. A lifetime of disappointments and perceived injustices sat heavily upon him, and he looked at the much younger captain with intense dislike and jealousy. He hated how young Drake was and how close together they were on the list, he hated the man's success, his popularity amongst his crews, and the good luck that he had with his missions. He hated how Drake was always top of the list for important assignments, how he had never been without a ship, having taking the _Endeavour_ when he first made captain and having never given her up since. In fact, the only thing that Fox liked about Drake was now being his commander.

Whatever the captain felt about Fox, he didn't let it show when he stepped forward and greeted, "Commodore. Welcome to the _Endeavour_."

"You took your sweet time getting here, Captain," said Fox, not feeling very civil. "We've been expecting you for two days. Held the whole squadron up with your slowness."

Drake said nothing; indeed no reply was expected of him. Both he and Fox knew that the _Endeavour_ had cracked on at a terrific pace, that few ships in the fleet could have matched her during her last run, and that to go any faster she would have required a transwarp drive. It was a ridiculous comment, and Fox knew as much the moment he had said it.

The captain allowed a moment to pass. "Perhaps we should talk in the conference room, sir?"

"Lead the way, Captain. I'm not so familiar with the layout of these old ships." The last part was said deliberately to provoke; all it did was cause Drake to congratulate himself for leaving Alix on the bridge: she'd have bitten the commodore's head off.

They gathered around the conference room table. Drake offered the commodore a cup of coffee; Fox replied that he only drank tea.

"The squadron has already been out a month, and we've chased away a Klingon ship," said Fox, doing his best to turn that horrible blunder into something that at least sounded positive. "My intention is to run the same course through the sector again, which will take another month, and then return to port to resupply. We were put into space in a hurry, and most of the squadron isn't equipped for a prolonged patrol."

"Understood," said Drake, giving no opinion as to the merits of this plan. The very lack of any kind of praise or criticism (the later being much more expected than the former) addled Fox, but he pressed on. "_Endeavour_ is to be stationed towards the rear of the line. I know you'll say that she's a heavy cruiser and belongs in the front, and you're technically correct; but she's old and fragile, and no match for a modern warship. Realistically, we must considered _Endeavour_ a light cruiser at most."

"As you say, sir."

"I believe there's nothing else, Captain. I shall return to _Thunderer_."

"Lieutenant Wolf will escort you back to the transporter room, Commodore. I must return to the bridge."

"Very well. Carry on."

Drake found Alix waiting for him when he stepped out of the turbolift. "And how is the old arsehole?"

"Alix," he reproached without much conviction. "That's no way to talk about a senior officer.

"Really? I thought I'd modified my language quite well. You should hear some of the things I was thinking of saying."

"Some other time, perhaps." He tapped the general announcement button on his chair. "Now hear this. All hands, this is the captain. We have joined formation with the Federation squadron, under Commodore Fox. We will patrol this sector of space for approximately one month, before returning to port. I know this kind of duty is long and tedious, but if we stick to our duties and work it'll pass before you realize it. Carry on."

Alix's eyebrows were up in her hairline. "A month? You've got to be kidding, Will."

"We're lucky it's not a year, Alix. That attack was brutal."

"Fox had a chance to catch the perpetrators, and the oaf bungled it."

"Alix…"

"Will. You know I'm right."

An argument on the bridge between the captain and helmsman, the two most respected people on the ship, would be disastrous for morale. Drake didn't feel like it, anyway. He agreed with what his friend was saying, and only objected out of the necessity of showing respect to Fox's post. There was little point in him doing so, however, as by now every hand on the ship was well aware of his opinion of the commodore – word having filtered down the grapevine during the flight – and there wasn't a man or woman aboard who didn't fall into line with their captain's view.

"That's in the past," was what he said. "We have our orders. Let's just get to it and get it over with."

And so the _Endeavour_ took her place in the line, and that line began the long slow journey around the sector, never pushing more than warp six, never seeming to get anywhere. A week into the flight they paused above the mining colony on Im II, but no shore leave was granted to the crew of any ship, and only a day after arrival the squadron was off again, back into the loneliness of deep space.

The only joy of squadron duty was being able to move between the ships, and crewmen took every opportunity to do so. It wasn't as good as shore leave, but it at least made a change from the all-too-familiar bulkheads of one's own vessel. Bodies of men would transport to and fro during off duty hours, and very quickly the favourite ships amongst the squadron were decided. _Endeavour_, _Phoenix_, _Atlante_ and _Namur_ became the most popular, as there a crewman could actually relax and not be tyrannised by the officers. _Detroit_, and the frigates _Cunning_ and _San Pablo_, on the other hand, were seen as ships to be avoided at all costs.

Being the largest of the good ships, _Endeavour_ saw the greatest number of visitors, and her people made the most friends amongst the squadron. One or two of her crew became very friendly indeed with their squad mates, and when Hope discovered Lieutenant Claise kissing Ensign Montavier of the _La Minerve_ in one of the observation galleries, the story was right the way around the ship before the hour was out; and around the squadron before the end of the watch.

New friendships weren't all that was happening, some old ones were renewed. Making their way off the _Cunning_ frigate after an unhappy visit, Marty Lewis and his friends Davis and Cook, old Albatrosses all three, recognized a pair of former shipmates working on one of the frigate's EPS regulators. It turned out that there were more than a dozen Albatrosses on the vessel, and after their shift was over they were all more than happy to take Lewis up on his suggestion that they come aboard _Endeavour_.

These particular Albatrosses had been most unfortunate. After leaving their ship because of the tyranny of their captain, they had ended up aboard a frigate commanded by a weak and ineffectual lieutenant. There was no malice in the man, but he could no more control his officers than he could conjure a wormhole, and the first and second officers were excessively cruel.

Lewis's uniform, emblazoned with Endeavour in white stitching, was a great shock to his old friends. The officers of _Cunning_ insisted on the ship and its crew looking beautiful all the time, and a lot of the crew's 'free time' was spent cleaning their vessel. Uniforms had to be spotless and perfect, presentable for an admiral's inspection, otherwise it was a week of punishment detail. No one would dare dub the name of his ship onto his uniform, even if he had been proud enough of the goddamned tub to want to.

"Won't the captain punish you if he sees your uniform like that?"

Lewis laughed. "No. If he did, he'd have to punish the whole crew. Besides, the captain doesn't much care what we look like, so long as we do our work."

"You're lucky, Marty, you landed a good ship."

"It's pretty bad over there, is it?"

Hopkins' voice dropped to a whisper. "It can't go on, Marty. We've got nothing against our captain, he's always treated us civil, but if things don't improve there will be a mutiny. Mark my words."

The very suggestion of such a thing would have shocked anyone in Starfleet. Mutiny was practically unheard of in the service. For Lewis, now so used to the comfortable life on _Endeavour_ that he could hardly believe he had ever been an Albatross, the idea of an armed uprising against the command staff was unthinkable.

"You can't be serious."

"I'm deadly serious, Marty, and there are seventy more of us over there who are just as serious."

Seventy mutineers? The compliment of a frigate like _Cunning_ was seventy-nine, including five officers. Things were bad indeed over there.

"That ass Fox doesn't do anything to help, either," muttered another Cunning.

"What's the matter with him?"

"What's the matter?" Hopkins spluttered. "Marty, have you seen him? He's just like our frigging first officer: every uniform must be neatly pressed, every bit of metal buffed to a gleaming finish. He's sent out orders that every ship in the squadron should meet his own standards. Doesn't look like you've paid any attention, mind," he added, reflecting on the _Endeavour_'s appearance: wonderfully casual.

"The captain does things his own way."

"So I see. Listen, this stays between you, me, and the bulkhead, but there are a lot of us who are happy to see you Endeavours, and I'm not just talking about Cunnings, either."

"Why's that?"

"Why? Fox and Drake are only one name apart on the list, you see. Our commodore only has three years seniority on Drake, and he's never had the kind of success that your captain has. He can't afford to push his luck too much around Drake, because there's a better chance of your captain getting promoted than him."

"I didn't know any of that."

"Well, you do now. Most of the ships in the squad are commanded by lieutenants, and Fox has no qualms about bossing them around; the few captains we've got are all new to the list, so they're not going to put up much of a fight either. But Drake…"

Senior captain or not, Drake was far from immune from the commodore's whims. He had received repeated orders to tidy up his ship, get his crew into line, and he had decided, on reflection, to just pretend that they had never arrived. He utterly refused to make his crew miserable for a month simply to appease a man who would be his superior for just that length of time as well. He was pretty certain that, on returning to port, the squadron would be broken up and Fox would return to being a captain. Maybe a new squadron would be formed and sent out to continue the patrol, but Drake could not imagine the admiralty allowing this inefficient, near-useless, collection of ships to remain together. Not if any of the admirals had even a gram of sense.

He was on his way to the turbolift to pay engineering a visit when Commander McDonald's voice stopped him. "The commodore is signalling permission to come aboard, sir."

"Again?" Snapped Alix. "That's the fifth bloody visit today!"

Drake and his entire crew were tired of Fox coming aboard to criticise and complain. Even McDonald, who had more respect for rank badges than most, had long since lost patience with the commodore, and she had been severely tempted not to mention the matter to her captain. A lifetime of strict adherence to rules and regulations had opened her mouth for her, however.

"I'm going to engineering," decided Drake. He would not come running every time Fox called. "Alix, can you promise to behave?"

"Not really."

"Fine. Go down to the transporter room, greet the commodore, and get rid of him. And if you could engineer it so that he doesn't come back for a while, I think we'd all be grateful."

On her way over to the port turbolift, Alix paused by communications. "Don't worry, Commander, I won't say or do anything that can get us in trouble."

McDonald thought of that time, long ago now, when they had been hurrying to prepare a dinner for Mr. Harrow, and Alix had got the awkward McDuff to behave with just a glance. Did she intend to do the same to the commodore? Perhaps more importantly, would that work?

Yeoman Hope and Crewman Linois were working the transporter when Alix walked in. Linois, a very capable and hard-working French crewman, was showing Hope how to operate the complex piece of machinery, and the yeoman was delighting in her lesson. Since coming aboard the _Endeavour_ as crew she had taken it upon herself to learn as much about the ship as was humanly possible, and as a result she had been warmly welcomed by the hands, who loved eagerness.

"Lieutenant," greeted Hope, and Linois gave her a nod. Alix removed her uniform jacket, hung it deliberately from her shoulders like a cloak, and after flashing a conspiratorial smile at the crewmen she said: "Bring the commodore across."

Fox's first sight when he came aboard the _Endeavour_, therefore, was of the young lieutenant, standing with a slouch and her hands in her pockets, her uniform jacket hanging from her shoulders, and her dark red hair gelled into entirely non-regulation spikes. "What is the meaning of this?"

"I'm Lieutenant Nain."

It was a greeting and an explanation rolled into one, and Fox recoiled with something like horror. He had heard plenty about the troublesome Nain, but had never met her. She was, he decided in a heartbeat, even worse than she was made out to be.

"Where is Drake?"

"The captain is otherwise engaged."

"That's the problem with this damned ship. No respect, no discipline! No respect for the chain of command, officers lounging about in improper uniform, the decks a mess, uniforms defaced," he raged, plucking at Hope's. "Remove that stitching, Crewman. Take it out!"

"Belay that," Alix drawled, turning lazily to meet the commodore's outrage. She was intentionally provoking him, and having a great time doing it.

"How dare you?"

"I love a dare."

The commodore spluttered. "This is insolence! Insubordination! I will speak to Drake now!"

"Nah, you won't."

"What did you say?" Demanded Fox, or at least that was what he intended to say. In fact he didn't get much farther than 'What' before his voice failed him and his blood fled into his boots to try and hide in the tips of his toes.

Kana Nain had a hell of a look.

"Get off this ship," the Destroyer instructed, "leave us be, and take your pomposity with you." Fox mounted the platform obediently – no one in their right mind would refuse an order uttered by a voice like that – and Kana hissed: "Energise."

The commodore disappeared, having learned his lesson when it came to antagonizing the _Endeavour_, and although he did return to the ship from time to time during the patrol, he kept his visits to a minimum, kept his thoughts pretty much to himself, and always found a reason to cut his stay short if Nain was so much as on the same deck.

News of this encounter in the starship's transporter room spread through the squadron like a plague, and it became one of the most popular stories. Alix found herself highly respected on the other ships, and the general impression of the Endeavours rose as well. Even the Thunderers, who had no particular love for their captain, enjoyed whispering the tale to each other in the mess, although never when an officer was within earshot.

The line continued on its path through the night, and aboard each ship the steady routine of life continued. Happy ships remained happy, miserable ones stayed miserable, and the relationships between different members of the squadron settled down to a pattern and became fixed in stone, with the San Pablos having little time for the Phoenixes, the Atlantes and the Namurs becoming brothers, and all feeling fondly towards the Endeavours. The feelings amongst the captains in the squadron did not always match those of their men, and while the Atlantes and Namurs might love each other dearly, Captains Solvak and Jervis disagreed on everything; nor were they the only captains to have difficulty in their working relationships, with Captain Li of the _Detroit_ and Commander Butcher of the _Ronald Reagan_ practically at each other's throats. Fox was not unaware of the troubles that were brewing in his squadron, and he attempted to talk to his captains, but he was too ineffectual a commodore, commanded too little respect, to have much influence, and so very little was done and the line simply carried on, resentment and ill-will festering like an open wound.

"I've never been involved in such a shabby display," Drake said to Alix one day, the two of them relaxing in his ready room. "It's a good thing that we're on our way back to port, because I don't think this squadron can hold together for much longer. Li and Butcher are ready to kill each other, Philippe and Von Braun got into a fight the other day – and you know how bad that is for morale."

"On the plus side, I hear Shark and Zebrowski are talking about an engagement. Pity, really. I had my eye on Zebrowski. Lovely legs."

Drake laughed. "You're a character, Alix. I hadn't heard that about those two, though. I mean, I know they've been dating…"

"Yes. And despite my best efforts to throw a spanner in the works, it looks like they want to make the next step." Alix shrugged. "Good luck to them, if it's really what they want. Moira doesn't know what she's missing out on, though."

"I don't think she much cares, Red Eyes. No, I'm glad there are one or two happy commanders, but most of them are miserable, and they're starting to really despise one another. I'm just happy that Fox doesn't hold more command councils, because I don't think my nerves would take it. Solvak and Jervis can argue for hours about nothing." He yawned. "I'm worried for the men, too. I've been on those ships; I've felt the atmosphere. Lieutenant Cole will be lucky if someone doesn't cut his throat while he sleeps."

"Individually some of the ships are very unhappy, and the _Cunning_ in particular, but I hear that the mood of squadron has picked up a lot since we joined. They like having the _Endeavour_ here and they like our people."

Drake smiled fondly. "That's good to know. And I think that some of their glee must come from your handling of Commodore Fox the other week. Which reminds me; just what did you do to him, Alix?"

She chuckled. "Will, if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times, these red eyes of mine…"

"Are scary as hell, I know. I'm glad you came on this voyage with me, Alix," he admitted, feeling in the mood to air what he had been thinking for over a month. "There was no need for it. You'd earned your rest, more than anyone else."

"Will, I was always going to come from the moment I heard you had a mission. You know that."

He nodded. He and Alix had a bond, and he wasn't surprised that she had come with him on this mission. "Still, I'm grateful for it. This last month's been a real trial, Alix, and I don't know how I'd have managed without you."

"You're going to give me a big head."

"You have a big head." He tapped her forehead playfully.

Alix grinned. "That's the point. If my ego swells too much more it'll burst. You'll have to clean bits of goo from your ready room. You don't want that."

Drake's laughter was cut short by the blaring of the red alert klaxon and McDonald's voice thundering from the comm speakers. "All hands to battle stations. This is not a drill. I repeat, all hands report to battle stations. This is not a drill."

Drake and Alix were on the bridge immediately and they both saw the cause of the alert. There, on the main screen, they could see a Klingon squadron bearing down on them, weapon ports glowing and ready to fire.


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

The Federation squadron was larger, and its numbers gave it great power. The Klingons were powerful in quite another way. Their much smaller group of ships – half a dozen, not even half of Fox's force – were led by the imposing bulk of a ship of the line, supported by two cruisers and three birds of prey. A small force, but the line-of-battle ship was a mighty power, and there was nothing in the Federation squadron that came close to matching it. _Thunderer_ was the biggest, most powerful ship at Fox's disposal, and Starfleet rated that a heavy cruiser. The battleship was well out of his league.

Nevertheless there was no possibility of declining the engagement – to allow a powerful and clearly hostile Klingon force to roam the sector unopposed was unthinkable – and Fox signalled for his ships to form up and prepare to engage the enemy. It was an order followed without a moment's pause by his captains, and the line came about to meet the foe.

Fox disliked Drake intensely, but he knew the man's reputation as a successful fighting captain, and with the odds against him he could not afford to waste a moment on personal vendettas. He commanded Drake to take the Miranda-class cruiser _Detroit_ and the frigates _Cunning_ and _Unite_ as wing mates and attack the Klingon cruisers. _Thunderer_ and the Miranda-class _Atlante_, _Phoenix_ and _Namur_ would tackle the battleship, while the rest of the frigates engaged the birds of prey. It was an optimistic plan, despite the heavy weight of numbers advantage – Klingon ships were on the whole better armed than their Federation counterparts, and could take substantially more pounding. However, it was the best that could be attempted and the squadron's captains set their minds to their duties.

"Close with the near cruiser amidships, Alix. Lay us alongside at point blank range. Brok, fire as your weapons come to bear."

Amidst a storm of phaser and torpedo fire, the _Endeavour_ closed on her enemy. The Klingon ship retaliated with shots of her own, but they lacked the accuracy or rate of fire that the starship could boast. Now the long months of training, uninterrupted by the starship's squadron duties, paid off. Old though she might be, and poorly armed by the standards of modern ships, the _Endeavour_ pounded her opponent again and again, smashing through the younger ship's reinforced shields and raking phaser beams across her bare hull. The cruiser's response was mostly pointless, as the Federation ship would not sit still long enough to let her land a shot home. Alix was a brilliant pilot, she knew her ship perfectly, and she caused the great starship to dance, springing nimbly around the flashes of disruptor fire that the Klingons sent their way, all the time closing in on her prey.

Elsewhere, the battle was not going so prettily. _Captain_ had blundered straight into a salvo from the battleship and had been mauled horribly, forced to withdraw or risk utter destruction. The _Phoenix _had lost her forward shields in closing with her target, and when the ship-of-the-line fired again a lucky shot struck the cruiser's bridge, blowing it apart and killing everyone unfortunate enough to be there. The ship stumbled, lost her way, and was immediately set upon by a bird of prey. She would have been plucked to death, had Commander Butcher not come rushing to the rescue, harassing the bird of prey with his frigate and forcing her to break off her attack.

The second cruiser, engaged by the _Detroit_ and _Cunning_, was more interested in battering the craft attacking the Klingon pendant ship than in defending itself. The light cruiser and frigate were barely able to make a dent in the warship's shields, anyway – annoying gnats, nothing more – they could be dealt with in time. The heavy cruiser chased _Thunderer_ and her wing mates, firing steadily.

_Endeavour_ ducked across her target's dorsal, rolled through ninety degrees and presented her entire array of ventral guns to the ship (the starship having been flying at a right angle relative to the orientation of the warship to begin with). Brok's cannons spoke, and the Klingon had nothing, absolutely nothing, to protect herself. Phased energy beams cut through the ship from top to bottom, tearing up her insides, breaking her apart. The cruiser shuddered once, before exploding in a mighty ball of plasma that would have done immense damage to _Endeavour_, had she not been far away at that particular moment and accelerating towards her next target, the second cruiser.

"Report," Drake requested.

"_Captain_, _Phoenix_, _San Pablo_ and _Excellent_ are too damaged to fight on, sir. _Ronald Reagan_ and _Unite_ have been destroyed. We've accounted for one cruiser and two birds of prey," said McDonald, monitoring the changing face of the conflict from communications.

"The cruisers and destroyers aren't the problem," opined Alix. "It's that battleship. It's swatting us like flies."

There wasn't any time for further discussion, as they came into weapons' range of their target. _Detroit_ and _Cunning_ were still fighting, and by now _Conquestada_ had joined them, but they had so far done minimal damage to the warship. _Endeavour_ added her cannons to the attack, and the Klingon vessel was at last forced to stop harassing the _Thunderer_ and worry about her own safety. After sending two volleys of torpedoes at the _Endeavour_ and hitting nothing but stars, the Klingons switched their attention to the slower moving _Detroit_.

"Captain Li is reporting heavy damage, sir," warned McDonald. "_Detroit_ has lost main power and has hull breaches on decks three and four."

"Alix, put us between _Detroit_ and the cruiser."

The massive bulk of the starship slid into place, absorbing the Klingon's next thunderous assault at near point blank range. A terrible blow and the starship felt it keenly, but her shields were at full strength and she was able to turn aside the deadly attack with minimal damage.

"Fire."

_Endeavour_'s retaliation was utterly brutal. An immense eruption of phaser fire that drained the Klingon's shields and kept right on cutting, smashing apart her starboard nacelle. The starship's gun crews were working like maniacs to keep up this unparalleled rate of fire, and thanks to their hard work the Klingon K'tinga-class cruiser, a modern and tough ship, was knocked out of the fight.

"They have lost power," reported Sarn. "Switching to auxiliary circuits. They have partial shields and weapons. Limited manoeuvrability."

"Second salvo, Mr. Brok. Finish them off."

"Phasers ready."

"Fi –"

"Oh my God!" Cried McDonald, before the order could be completed or carried out. "They've destroyed _Thunderer_! She's coming apart!"

"On screen."

He could see the ship breaking up, her decks aflame and great holes punched through her hull. A trio of frigates were buzzing around the doomed starship, evacuating everyone that they could while there was time. Even though the ship was tearing herself apart, the Klingon battleship kept firing into her hulk, barbarically sending shot after shot into her to kill as many of her people as she could. Drake felt his blood boiling, and could do nothing to bring his temper under control. The Klingons' behaviour was atrocious, deplorable.

It was all over a moment later. The new ship went up in a great ball of fire, and when it cleared there was nothing left of her; not even a scattering of debris. Antimatter annihilation. Nothing could have survived that blast.

Radio checks started flooding in from the three frigates, reporting all those who had been beamed to safety – a tiny fraction of the starship's eight hundred. Fox had survived the destruction of his ship, but he was unconscious, bleeding profusely, and there was no guarantee that he would last much longer. With the commodore out of action, command of the squadron shifted to the next senior-most officer – Drake. He had never been in a situation like this before, never had this kind of responsibility on his shoulders. He expected the knowledge of it to hit him all at once and crush him, but it never came: he was strangely calm.

"This is _Endeavour_. All ships, maintain attack. Give them everything you've got."

That was not much. There were few true fighters in the squadron, and far too few of the captains had really trained their crews to battle. There was confusion, slow, inefficient firing, poor combat manoeuvres, and a lack of teamwork. With one or two exceptions – Captains Solvak and Jervis being a pair of notable ones, which was surprising given their mutual animosity. No one knew how to get the best out of his or her ship. The Starfleet squadron's numerical advantage was entirely squandered by the ineptitude of the ships involved. Half as many craft, more competently manned and controlled, would have had far greater effect.

Meanwhile, the Klingon battleship continued to throw heavy disruptor bolts in every conceivable direction, slapping at anything and everything that came into range. She was a massively powerful ship, crewed by people who knew her well and knew how to fight with her, and she was punishing her opponents.

"It's no good, Will," Alix said. "If we're going to win this we've got to take that big bastard out."

"We don't have the means to take her," he replied, but a thought started to form in his mind as soon as he said those words. It was crazy, something rarely attempted in a space battle, and never in such an engagement as this, but that very craziness might work – the Klingons would never expect it.

A hell of a risk, and if he was wrong…but there was no other choice, no realistic alternative. Even while one part of his mind was still weighing it up, picking out the flaws, the ridiculous risks, the rest of him was already committed: a snap decision – no time to even hope that it was the right one.

"All hands, this is the captain. We are about to engage the Klingon line-of-battle ship. We'll be knocked around, but have courage. Keep to your posts, keep the ship moving and the guns firing, and we'll survive. We're going to close to point blank range, and then we're going to _board the enemy_!"

It was a bold plan, a tactic that harked back to the age of sail, when an attacker would close yardarm to yardarm with his target, let her have a thundering broadside and then swarm aboard in the smoke to have at the crew until she struck her colours. Even in those times there were few examples of a smaller ship taking a larger one, but it had been done: Lord Cochrane of the British brig _Speedy_ of fourteen four-pound guns had tackled and captured the Spanish xebec-frigate _El Gamo_, mounting twenty-two twelve-pounders and eight eight-pounders. Drake hoped that some of Lord Cochrane's luck would come his way in this caper.

No one in Starfleet had ever heard of such a manoeuvre, but the Endeavours had absolute confidence in their captain, and if he was going aboard that big Klingon bastard, they would be going right along with him. Already there were men and women flocking to the armouries, pulling on combat gear and helping themselves to phasers. Everyone knew that there were few more fierce warriors than Klingons, that the battleship had nearly twice their numbers, but such facts in no way dampened the spirits of the boarding parties as they prepared for action. Friends had been lost in this battle, and no one had forgotten the atrocious attack on Herminie. There wasn't a soul aboard the starship who wasn't keen to get into close action and serve the Klingons back some of their own brutality. Even Yeoman Hope, who had never even kicked a cat in her life, rushed for a phaser and a belt of photon grenades.

"You'll want me in a boarding party," announced Alix.

That was a no-brainer; Drake had never encountered someone with as much aptitude or enthusiasm for close fighting as his friend. "Of course. But first I need you to get us into boarding range in one piece."

"On it."

The starship tore towards the line-of-battle ship, her phasers erupting in a steady stream of fire that made Drake proud of each and every member of his gun crews. They may have been slow and ill-disciplined when he had first received them, but now they worked their phaser cannons earnestly. The memory of the Herminie massacre drove the gunners to work harder, fire faster, and be doubly sure that their shots were going to go home and kill some of the monsters that had been behind that attack.

The battleship was spreading her fire amongst all the ships in the squadron at first, but when she noticed the _Endeavour_ barrelling down on her in earnest she made the starship a priority. Despite Alix's best efforts, blasts struck the old girl and caused her to stumble: terrible, horrifically powerful shots; but she hadn't survived fifty years of Starfleet service by being weak, and she could take a few hits. Relentlessly the old starship ploughed on, chewing up the miles between herself and her intended victim, until they were no longer miles but mere yards. At point blank range the starship's phasers cut up the battleship's shields, and the warship was frustrated by her inability to fire back, Alix having positioned the starship in a blind spot where no guns could reach her.

"Boarding parties," instructed Drake, his tactic unaltered. His ship couldn't stay out of the line of fire forever, and neither could she win in a slugging match with that juggernaut, although she was certainly willing to try. "Alix, Wolf, with me. Vicki, you have the con."

"Captain, I should go."

"No." In an action such as this it was the captain's responsibility to be at the front and leading the charge: asking, not demanding, that his men came with him. McDonald was still unpopular – the crew would not follow her. "My decision, my responsibility. Carry on."

Drake's strategy was as unexpected as he had believed it would be. At first the Klingon crew were completely unaware of what was happening, and by the time they worked it out it was already too late. More than a hundred Endeavours were already aboard the battleship, and more were coming every three seconds with each fresh transporter cycle. Not just security officers, but an army of volunteers: anyone the ship could spare – scientists, helmsmen, shuttle technicians, communications specialists, anyone not vital in keeping the ship moving and shooting. They came aboard in waves, the transporters constantly at work, and while the boarders were outnumbered they had righteous fury to power them into battle, and a bond with each other that their opponents could not match. The attackers worked in teams, friends standing alongside one another to help each other survive, while the defenders were out for themselves and for personal glory. They had no chance.

The Klingons fought courageously, but they were utterly unprepared for the attack. Very few of them had close-quarter weapons to hand, and all of the boarders carried some model of phaser. Alix Nain, who led the group closing in on the ship's bridge, was ambidextrous and wielded a pistol in each hand. With these two weapons she was an angel of death, cutting down any Klingon in her path, blue beams of fire pinning her enemies even behind cover. Her party all carried phaser rifles, and they picked off the few that escaped their lieutenant's shots. Methodically, with the cold efficiency of a machine, they swept the decks on the way to their target.

"_Exhilarating, isn't it, Alix? There's nothing like a good boarding action to get the blood racing. On your right."_ The human turned and fired, eviscerating the Klingons that had attempted to flank them through a joining corridor. Kana laughed wickedly, savouring the carnage, the smell of blood and burn flesh, the screams of the dying and the moans of the injured: little gave her greater pleasure.

From the bodies of the defeated Klingons, Alix helped herself to a pair of _mek'leth_ short swords, and it was wielding these that she burst onto the bridge of the Klingon ship. The officers were better prepared than their crew, and they counterattacked the Starfleet force immediately. Alix decapitated the first officer and disembowelled the master gunner, before turning her attention to the ship's captain. He came at her with a _bat'leth_, an aggressive charge that had identical results to Grownel's rush against Kana: Alix stepped out of the direct line of the charge, slipped her left sword into the middle of the three grips on the _bat'leth_, and wrenched the weapon from its owner. Her right sword she drove through the Klingon's throat, killing him instantly.

"_I see you paid attention. Very nice footwork, and a smooth killing blow."_

She looked around and saw her party engaged in a bitter struggle with the remaining Klingon officers. In hand-to-hand combat the Klingons had the advantage, being bigger and stronger, and the Starfleet crewmen were being battered. She launched herself into the melee, swords whistling through the air in deadly sweeps. Alix had no real idea of what was happening, what she was doing, it was all purely instinct – thrust, block, slice, stab, block, hack, hack, block, stab... Her uniform became sodden with blood, her arms tired and sore from the repeated motions (feelings that went entirely unnoticed at the time, adrenaline making her invincible and indefatigable), but eventually it was over, the Klingons all lying dead, no one left to fight. She inspected her team. They were beaten and bloody, but all were present and correct.

"Secure the bridge," Alix instructed, and as her people moved to cover all the entrance points in case of a counteroffensive, she observed the Destroyer smiling at her. _"You're a mess. There isn't a part of your body that isn't stained with blood."_

"_I know. I can feel it."_

"_You can, can't you? Feel it, I mean? The exhilaration of battle; the delight of this slaughter. You relish it."_

Alix ignored her dark counterpart and walked away. Kana was entirely wrong: Alix felt no pleasure in this action, but then she felt nothing at all right now. Her cold, practical evil was quite firmly in control of her.

The bridge had been taken, but fighting continued elsewhere in the ship. Drake's party met with enormous resistance storming the engine room, and would have been wiped out completely if it hadn't been for the killing machine that was Lieutenant Wolf. She launched herself at her foes, fast and vicious as a cheetah, her claws slashing and her teeth closing around throats, tearing out windpipes. She was a murderous blur of motion, surging from Klingon to Klingon, ripping them apart, but even with her it was hard work. Half a dozen members of Drake's team were killed, including Crewman Lewis, who died valiantly defending his captain from the chief engineer, stabbed through the chest by a _d'k'tagh_ dagger. The chief died a moment later, his heart torn out by Wolf, but it was too late to save the crewman. A human might have felt guilt, might have blamed herself for being too slow, but Wolf had no such feelings, and she sought out another victim without a moment's pause.

The Klingons would not surrender, but no one had ever expected them to. They fought until they died, or until they were too badly wounded to fight on. Decks flowed with blood, and the boarders found themselves stumbling over the bodies of their enemies as they pressed on forward. The fighting continued for close to half-an-hour, but long before the end the situation had become utterly hopeless for the Klingons. By now the other ships in the squadron had sent over their own teams to assist the Endeavours, and hundreds of Atlantes, Detroits, Namurs and Cunnings swarmed the ship; but even with more than a thousand armed Starfleet crewmen aboard their ship, the heavily depleted body of Klingons refused to consider surrender.

Finally, after a fight that seemed to last forever, the whole bloody ordeal was over. There were no Klingons left on the pennant ship capable of resisting, and the exhausted but victorious Starfleet force took possession. Those Klingons who had survived, a mere handful, were transferred to the squadron's ships to receive medical care, along with the Federation's own wounded.

Drake came onto the Klingon bridge and found it under the control of a group of Endeavours, led by Alix Nain. They had already begun to clean up the mess made by the capture, and Nain had posted hands at vital workstations. She turned when she heard him enter, tried to smile. "The ship's ours?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"We've twenty-six confirmed dead, nearly fifty in sickbay."

Given the ferocity of the fighting, the enormity of the victory, Alix considered their losses to be very small indeed, but she refrained from saying so. The captain looked old and tired, emotionally as well as physically exhausted. He felt those deaths very heavily.

"Swords?" He said, noticing the weapons in Alix's hands.

"Seemed more appropriate for a boarding action. Besides, Klingons prefer to fight hand-to-hand."

"True."

Alix went to put a hand on her hurting friend's shoulders, but stopped when she saw how gory her hands were. Instead she told him tenderly, "You did what had to be done, Will. We've achieved a monumental victory here today. A Klingon line-of-battle ship taken out of commission by the _Endeavour_. Our people didn't die in vain. Because of their courage, this ship and its wingmates can no longer threaten this sector. The Endeavours are heroes today, Will. Even the dead."

His smile was a small and sad one, but some light returned to his eyes, some colour to his face. "Where would I be without you?"

Alix Nain said nothing. Kana Nain, however, had an answer: _"Dead and buried, most likely."_


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

The squadron returned to port, the captured warship in tow, and there they were greeted as heroes, their triumph over the Klingon force loudly celebrated by the people of Starbase Seventy and the New Manchester planet around which the base orbited. The ships' officers and crew were saluted, paraded, wined and dined, and forced to endure long and boding speeches complimenting their bravery and unheard of success. Every admiral who could find an excuse paid a visit to the station to give his or her personal view on the victory, and the men and women involved were obliged to hear them all; not that they minded all that much.

None were more greatly honoured than the crew of the _Endeavour_, whose accomplishments became legendary. To board and capture a Klingon ship of the line, and in the middle of a pitched battle! It was incredible, almost beyond belief, but the fact of it lay in the starbase's docking bay, being picked apart by Starfleet engineers in an effort to learn its every secret. Add to that the destruction of a Klingon cruiser, and the crippling of another, and the Endeavours quickly became the stuff of local legend.

It wasn't entirely a pleasant time, however. In the end, thirty-two members of the ship's crew had perished in the fighting, and Captain Drake was required to contact each of their families in turn and let them know the bad news. It was the part of his job that he had always hated, because there was no easy or right way to tell a parent that their child was dead, and their tears never failed to affect him. Alix had volunteered to handle it for him, knowing how much he hated making the calls, but Drake had refused; it was his responsibility, and he owed it to their parents. Those mothers and fathers deserved to hear from their child's commanding officer the reason why they wouldn't be coming home. He could oblige them with no less.

Particularly difficult was breaking the news to the Lewis family. They were quite exceedingly poor, and their sons had entered Starfleet to try and scrape together some money to help out back home. In addition to the terrible, heart-crushing blow of Martin's death, they had to face losing the money that their son had been providing them with; and without his monthly check it was questionable how they were going to survive. They were terribly in debt already, and the creditors on the mining outpost where they lived were not at all merciful.

"In that at least I can be of some very small comfort, sir," Drake said to Marty's father, his mother having broken down completely at the news and having had to be led away by their young daughter. "The Klingon ship we took is a legal prize, and we will be paid its value for the capture. Every member of the crew takes a share in the prize-money, and for such a valuable ship as this that will come to a substantial amount of money. I will see that Marty's share is forwarded directly."

"Thank you, Captain. Thank you."

"There's no need to thank me, sir. I wish that I could do more."

The dead were buried with full Starfleet honours, and when the prize-money came through Drake made sure that the families of the deceased received their share. He was right in guessing that the capture would bring in a great deal of money for the crew, and he hoped that it would be of some kind of comfort to those who had lost a loved one. Nothing would make the pain go away, but he hoped that it would at least be eased slightly.

This was not the only piece of misery. The damaged ships had to be repaired and made ready for service again, those captains that could be called tyrants harassing their crews torturously to get the work done in double quick time. It was enough to push the Cunnings over the edge, and the long-feared mutiny finally took place. Lieutenant Cole's officers might have survived the fight with the Klingons, but they did not survive a furious uprising from within their own ship. True to their word, the mutineers didn't harm their commander, and after killing the first and second officers, they put the rest off the ship and fled into the night, the cutter _Panther_ giving chase until the mutineers were far outside the solar system and she had to turn back.

Then there was Fox's court-martial, a sordid ordeal for everyone involved. Fox had lost his ship, and so a court martial necessarily had to take place. Of course, the _Thunderer_ had fallen to a superior enemy vessel (just how superior anyone on the court martial panel could learn by simply visiting the craft in question). The ship's logs, the testimony of the _Thunderer_'s officers, and that of the other ships in the squadron, all attested that Fox had done everything in his power to subdue his foe and save his vessel. Under other circumstances the court-martial would have been merely a formality, acquittal guaranteed.

However, there existed the fact that Captain Drake, in the smaller, older, weaker _Endeavour_ had attacked exactly the same Klingon warship and had taken her, at the loss of just over thirty men. Fox had lost six hundred twenty, as well as his ship. This put the court in a very difficult position indeed, for no matter what ruling they reached it would seem ridiculous to someone: find Fox innocent and to some it would look like Starfleet accepted incompetence, find him guilty and they would seem to be setting impossibly high standards, expecting their cruiser captains to be able to defeat battleships.

Drake himself appeared at Fox's court-martial, testifying in the captain's favour. He said that the court's only choice was to find Fox innocent of all charges of neglect and incompetence – impossible to expect an Excelsior-class to defeat a battleship – Fox's valiant attack no doubt made it easier for _Endeavour_ to take the ship – it would be a great shame on the service, a great waste, if Captain Fox was to be broken over this.

It was while the court was in recess and deliberating that Vice-Admiral Granger proposed a solution. "We can't fault Fox's handling of the situation. We have no choice but to dismiss the charges against him. Anything else and there will be an outcry, a travesty of justice."

"He lost his ship," protested Admiral Applegate, who was all for ruining Fox over this.

"To a greatly superior enemy," Granger reminded patiently. "The public aren't stupid; if we drag Fox over the coals they won't stand for it. We have to acquit him."

"And then what? Even then we look foolish."

Admiral Hamilton threw in: "It's that damned _Endeavour_. If she hadn't taken the ship this would be easy. Drake went and made Fox look like a fool, and he's stuck us all in an impossible position."

"What do you propose to do, Admiral Granger?" That was McCaffrey, of course. The one man who could be counted on to keep his temper and ask right questions.

"Captain Fox must be found innocent, and Captain Drake must be rewarded handsomely for his victory."

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Drake was entirely unaware of this conversation, and when Vice-Admiral Granger called him to his office the next day he didn't have any idea what might be going on. If he had talked to Alix he might have got a clue, as the helmsman was as good at finding out other people's secrets as she was at keeping her own, but since returning to starbase he had seen very little of his friend; Alix having met a nice Orion girl at that first party, and since then she had been difficult to track down.

"Will, come in, sit down. Would you like something to drink? Allow me to congratulate you personally on your great victory."

"Thank you, Admiral," said Drake, accepting the small glass of a spirit that he couldn't identify. Nothing from Earth. Tasted a bit like raspberries. "Tell me, how are things going for Captain Fox?"

"The court-martial has reached its decision. We give our verdict tomorrow, so it can't hurt in telling you: Captain Fox is going to be acquitted. He'll probably spend some time ashore, but he'll get another ship."

"I'm glad to hear it. He's not a bad captain." Drake had no love for the man, but he had fought bravely, done his best, and that counted for something.

Admiral Granger had no great interest in Fox; however he did have an interest in Drake, and more specifically in Drake's career. He had great respect for the captain, and had done everything in his power to assist his progression, pushing his name forward even after Drake's unfortunate support for Nain – a move on the captain's part that had utterly alienated him in the Admiralty. What he had to say now gave him great joy. "Will, I'm pleased to be the first to congratulate you on your promotion."

"Sir?"

"In recognition of your capture of the Klingon warship, and your unfailing commitment to your duty, Starfleet is promoting you to the rank of rear-admiral, effective immediately. Congratulations."

Drake was stunned, nearly speechless. Not so long ago he had been evaluating his career, apparently stalled, and wondering if he had killed himself so long ago when he'd brought Nain into the service. Since then he had advanced nowhere, being passed over again and again for a fleet-captain's rank, never receiving even a short-lived commodore's post. But now…all of a sudden his career had leapt forward. He should have been thrilled, elated, and he kept waiting for the joy to flood him, but it didn't. Maybe he was in shock.

That didn't explain the cold sense of loss that was gripping his heart, and a second later Drake had found its cause. An image of his old but beautiful starship came into his mind, and he felt a tear in his eye. As an admiral, she would be his ship no longer.

"I'm very grateful, sir, but I'm a starship commander; an admiral's post comes with it a sector command. I'm not ready to leave the bridge just yet."

Granger offered a conciliatory smile. "As for that, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. All of our sectors already have a commander. You'll have to remain on ships for the time being. As an admiral, you're free to choose your own flagship. The _Indomitable_ is in dry dockhere, and she could be pushed into service before the end of the month," it was a necessary but pointless offer; Granger knew that it would never be accepted.

A wave of relief hit Drake. He felt like laughing. "With your permission, sir, I'll hoist my flag aboard _Endeavour_."

The old man smiled. "You don't need my permission, Will. It's your right. Now, as I've said there are currently no vacant sector or starbase commands. Until one becomes available, Starfleet would very much appreciate it if you were to continue to patrol this sector in your flagship; our presence cannot be reduced. Essentially, you'll have an admiral's power and pay, but a captain's responsibilities."

"The best of both worlds."

"I thought you'd approve," said Granger. "The order has been confirmed; your name has been added to the admirals' list, with seniority from today. Congratulations, Admiral Drake."

"Thank you, sir. Thank you very much."

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'My dearest Annabelle,

'Unexpected (but wonderful!) news, my dear! I have been promoted! I am, as of today, Rear-Admiral William L. Drake. I'm a flag-officer! You cannot believe how happy this makes me; my ambition ever since I first enrolled in Starfleet Academy, now fulfilled! Admiral Drake! I wish you could see me now – grinning and leaping around like a schoolboy. This is the best thing that ever happened to me (service-wise, that is, of course).

'Alix is organising a little informal ceremony to mark my promotion. She's threatened speeches (how I am dreading it already). Sadly, there is no way for you to be here to for the party. However, Horris has volunteered to record the proceedings for us, so at least you'll be able to watch and laugh at how ridiculous it all is from the comfort of the living room. No doubt Alix is going to make my life hell with all sorts of jokes until the end of the commission, but I think I'll be able to take it – if I ever need a pick-me-up I'll just need to look down at my new uniform.

'With promotion, of course, comes an increase in responsibility, and in pay. Fortunately, I have been able to keep the old _Endeavour_ as my flagship, and for the time being I'm to stay in ships (a starbase assignment would drive me mad). My new salary, coupled with the prize-money I'm due to receive should finally cover the cost of that little gazebo in the Andorian style that I've been wanting to build since we first moved in. Assuming I'm correct in my calculations, could you organize for the builders to start work as soon as possible? With the situation still delicate around here I probably won't be back on Earth for some months, and if it could be standing by the time I return, how happy I would be.

'Admiral McCaffrey's secretary is to visit me shortly to discuss some matters of office with me – in fact, that's him now. I have to run, my dear. My best love to you, and I hope to see you soon."

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A spontaneous roar of applause thundered throughout the hall, as Drake entered wearing his splendid new admiral's uniform, and there in the front of the crowd he saw Alix, cheering at the top of her lungs, with no regards to decorum. Around her stood the _Endeavour_'s officers, a little more restrained in their cheering, but just as genuine, none of them anything short of delighted at this great honour that had been bestowed upon their commanding officer. Their respect and admiration warmed him to the heart. He felt just a little self-conscious walking around in this gold-laced coat, a part of him felt like he was dressing up, playing at being admiral, but his officers and crew appreciated seeing it; they were savouring reflected glory. That made it worthwhile.

There was a buffet laid on, obviously organised by someone with more class than Alix. McDonald, he speculated. Various admirals, captains, friends, and anyone else who had found their way to the party loitered around in the great hall, eating, drinking, and talking merrily in groups. Rear-Admiral Drake was obliged to take a walk through the crowds, to shake hands with everyone in turn and receive their personal congratulations – most of them delivered by strangers and utterly meaningless to him, those that came from friends delightful and unforgettable.

Alix hung away in a corner, unseen by all but the man whom she wanted to see her. The girl's smooth oval face lit up in a broad, beaming grin as he came near her, as warm and bright as the summer sun, and Drake basked in the heat of it. She stepped up to him, gave a tiny tug on his jacket to adjust its position, and suddenly it no longer felt at all awkward on him.

"Congratulations, Will. No one deserves it more." She dusted down his shoulders and gave him a cheeky smile. "But if you think for one moment I'm going to start calling you 'sir' or 'admiral', you've got another thing coming."

"I'm quite fond of 'master'."

His friend laughed heartily and he joined her, feeling more comfortable than he had since he had first stepped into Granger's office. He looked down at his new jacket, the unfamiliar emblem on his shoulder, the line of gold around the chest, the little things that distinguished him as a flag-officer. Technically, he had held the rank of rear-admiral ever since he had spoken to Granger, but until he had put on this jacket it hadn't seemed real to him. Now it was official, now it was definite – he was Captain Drake no longer.

"You look good."

"You too. I see you had a dress uniform after all."

She fingered the fabric of the long burgundy coat, decorated with her few service ribbons. Smiled. "Actually, no. Bought specially for the occasion."

"I'm flattered."

"So you should be," Alix told him, and he laughed again.

His mirth was short lived, however, as a painful thought came through his mind. He looked into Alix's deep, mysterious red eyes, trying to see if anything had changed about the way she looked at him; a hopeless task, Alix's mind was never on display. Tentatively he tried, "I hope this doesn't affect anything? Change us in any way?"

She laughed boisterously at the very notion. "Hell no! You might one day be the Chief in Command of the fleet, Will, you might be the President of the Federation, but I'm still never going to salute you, or treat you as anything other than my friend. Don't let that badge go to your head."

He was relieved to hear it, but all the same he felt like teasing. "You know, as an admiral, I can have you locked up in a penal ship for that kind of talk."

"Try it," she warned. "See what I do."

"No thanks. I like my legs the way they are."

"Yeah. So do I, actually. And I'm going to like saying that my best friend is an admiral, too."

This caused a bitter huff from Kana. _"I thought I was your best friend?"_

"_All right, so one of my best friends is an admiral and the other is a goddess. I sure know how to pick friends!"_


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

After a night of dignified celebrations – and one wild pub-crawl organized by Alix, during which he lost more Endeavours than in the action with the Klingons – Rear-Admiral Drake was called into conference with the rest of the Admiralty on Starbase Seventy. After a hearty breakfast of bacon, toast and painkillers, he felt just about ready to tackle such a meeting, and on his way up to the starbase he passed several groups of Endeavours who were obviously still recovering from last night: all credit to Alix, she knew how to organize a good drinking session. His shipmates all smiled and greeted him easily enough, and Drake happily returned their good mornings.

It was a different matter when he reached the starbase, and he became uncomfortable. As with every other base in the quadrant, there were a great number of captains on Seventy. Some had ships in dock, but many more were waiting for commands to become available. Drake recognized very few of the faces, but he knew Captain Loveless, a man seven years his senior, and he was partway through saying "Good morning, sir" when Loveless said it to him. For a moment Drake was taken aback, before he recalled that he was no longer a captain, that Loveless was no longer his senior. He suddenly felt very awkward again. He had been used to his place on the captain's list – somewhere near the middle – he had known who was above and who was below him; had known his place in the natural order of things. Now that order was entirely destroyed. His name no longer resided on the same list as Loveless'. In fact, his was last on the list of admirals, an entirely different plane of existence all together.

_I'll get used to it_, he assured himself, but he was not much convinced. In fact twice more on his walk he came across formerly senior captains, and had to bite back the word 'sir' before it could escape from his lips. He was surprised and somewhat disheartened by the coldness of the greetings he received in reply, quite devoid of human feeling. The curse of flag-rank, he reminded himself. He was above those people in Starfleet's hierarchy, and they were obliged to show him a certain level of respect. It made him feel lonely and cut off from the people he had so long considered to be his contemporaries.

His spirits were greatly buoyed when he came into contact with an old friend – an even older acquaintance than Alix Nain, not quite so treasured, but close. Captain Nwabudike Lal had arrived one day too late to join in the party, and now he came rushing towards Drake with his hand out-stretched and a brilliant white smile shining on his coal black face. "Will! Congratulations! Sorry I missed the show. Alix sent me an invite, but we just couldn't make it."

"Nwabudike! It's great to see you again. How are you?"

"Fine, fine. Just come back from a deep space survey op – you know what those are like."

"Boring, huh?"

"Dull as can be. Still, given what's been happening around here I'm almost glad we missed it."

"You heard what happened to Herminie?"

"My first officer had a cousin there."

Drake winced. "I'm sorry."

"So am I. I've given her leave; I hope it helps." He cheered up. "I also heard about some reckless young fool attacking a Klingon battleship in an antique starship. Now that cannot be right, can it?"

"Would you believe they made me admiral for it?"

"I know." Nwabudike scratched his head. "Still getting my head around that one. You've told Annabelle? By the way, I stopped in to see her when I was on Earth."

"How is she?" Asked Drake, keen to hear news of his beloved. He had received several letters from her since the ship had left Spacedock, and they kept him pretty well informed, but when it came to Annabelle he could never hear enough.

"Lovely as ever," Nwabudike assured him. "She tells me that the children she teaches get thicker every year, but other than that she seems to be enjoying herself. Did you know that Arkett finally retired?"

"No, I hadn't heard." Arkett had been captain of the _Endeavour_ when he and Nwabudike had been junior lieutenants in that vessel, and Alix had been a six-year-old passenger, her parents senior officers.

"It's true. He bought the house at the end of your street – that big one that you said would never sell."

"I didn't say that – Alix did."

"Whoever. I don't envy you, Will," Nwabudike chuckled. "Having the old captain living just down the street. It would intimidate the hell out of me if he moved in next door to me."

"Lucky I'm in deep space, then, huh? It'll be good to see Arkett again – I haven't seen him since he was made Admiral of the Vulcan Fleet. I've got good memories of him."

"So do I. Speaking of admirals, how did Alix take your little promotion?"

"Said she wasn't going to salute."

Nwabudike laughed. "That sounds like Alix. How is she?"

"I don't really know, to be honest. She met a girl the first day we were in port and since then…"

"She's been flat on her back?"

Drake tried not to think about it. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Nwabudike let loose another of his boundlessly cheerful laughs. "You know, I've thought about asking her for tips before now. See if I can replicate some of her success with the ladies."

"I don't think you'd do much with the kind of women Alix attracts."

Nwabudike shrugged. "Well, maybe not. You never know; could be interesting."

Drake laughed hard, but he couldn't laugh long, time ticking away. "Nwabudike, I'm sorry, but I've gotta run. I've got a meeting with the brass. "

"You are the brass."

"Right. How long are you staying around the base? Got time for a drink?"

He nodded. "More than one. Ship needs basic repairs, and I'm going to have to take on new crew – my old hands have all been paid off by now. A few weeks."

"Great. I'll catch up with you, then."

Admirals McCaffrey, Granger, Applegate and Hamilton were all waiting for him when he arrived in the briefing room, apologising for his tardiness.

"You're not late, Admiral Drake," said McCaffrey. "We're still waiting on Admiral Robin."

They didn't have to wait long, the portly admiral arrived just a little after Drake, his fleshy face bright red and liberally doused with sweat. He had been running to try and get to the meeting on schedule. "Sorry I'm late, everyone. There was a minor uprising on the _San Pablo_ this morning, and I was obliged have a look in."

"Damn the _Cunning_," hissed Applegate, hitting his fist into his palm. "Ever since that mutiny there've been a lot more grumbles around the base. Discontent everywhere."

Drake had intended to keep his mouth shut as much as possible throughout this meeting. He was new to his rank, didn't really know what it meant to be an admiral, and didn't want to offend anyone on his first day. Nevertheless, this was an issue on which he felt capable of speaking. "Those ships were unhappy even before the _Cunning_ mutiny, sirs. _Detroit_ and _San Pablo_ have never been happy."

"No," agreed Hamilton, who kept a close eye on the morale of the vessels in and around the sector. "Shark should never have been given command – wouldn't have if his father wasn't on the Council."

"Captain Li is a very capable man," defended Applegate. He was the kind of man who excused officers of almost every offence, laying all the blame squarely on the crewmen. He believed far too much that men higher up the hierarchy were better men.

"He is an excellent captain," Drake agreed. "During the battle he set about that Klingon cruiser wonderfully. But he has a poor way of dealing with his crew."

"What are you suggesting, Admiral?" Said Hamilton, before Applegate could speak. He was well acquainted with Applegate and knew that nothing useful or productive could come out of his mouth.

"There are a large number of ships in dock right now. Might it be possible to…disperse the Detroits and San Pablos amongst the fleet? And perhaps genteel first officers could be placed on the ships; people whom the crew would feel more comfortable with?"

Applegate was of the opinion that this would do no good what so ever – that black sheep could not be whitened – but he was ignored. McCaffrey, who had been a starship captain and knew the importance of a happy ship, wholeheartedly approved of Drake's suggestion. He called in his clerk, had his orders transcribed and sent out.

"Let's hope that it has an effect. Now, Gentlemen, if we can turn our attention to other business. These rogue Klingons – and we are assured that they are rogue – are a serious matter that must be dealt with immediately. The destruction of Herminie cannot go unpunished."

"Are we sure they are renegade?" Asked Robin. "They did send a battleship."

"It's a frightening thought if a Klingon battleship can go rogue without anyone noticing," agreed Hamilton.

"The Klingon military is very compartmentalized," said Drake, speaking again on a topic of which he was quite knowledgeable. "General Kravft explained it to me during my last mission. Each House has its own fleet of ships and body of soldiers. The High Council itself has a fleet and an army, but these are quite small, and the government usually draws upon the personal House forces when it goes to war."

"So you're saying that we could be dealing with just one militant Klingon House?"

"General Kravft was of that opinion."

"House Han'tH, I believe you said in your report?" Said McCaffrey, taking charge of the proceedings.

"Yes, sir."

"What do we know about them?" Asked Granger, looking about for an answer.

"They were heavily opposed to the Khitomer treaty; they tried to persuade the High Council that war was the only course, but Chancellor Azetbur silenced them. Since then they've been moodily quiet, but Starfleet hasn't been watching too closely. We didn't want to be seen to by spying on our new allies." McCaffrey mulled over what he had just said. "It's quite possible that they've been using the time to amass their forces in secret. What I can't understand is why the High Council didn't notice."

Something came to Drake. "General Kravft told me that he had been recalled to Qo'noS to discuss something of great importance with the Council, but he couldn't tell me what."

"You think that this could be it, Admiral?"

"I think it's a possibility," Drake replied. "The High Council might have known that Han'tH was marshalling his troops; and they wouldn't necessarily have wanted to let us know that they were having trouble with one of their own generals. In any case, it would be worth sending a ship to Qo'noS to speak to the High Council. They might know something, and we should probably let it be known that we don't hold the Empire responsible for what happened."

Nodding heads, a chorus of agreement. Was this what it meant to be an admiral? Stating one's opinion, pointing out the obvious? He could do that.

McCaffrey looked over to him. "Admiral Granger informs me that you intend to remain with your ship, Drake?"

"That's correct, sir."

"How soon can _Endeavour_ be ready to depart?"

He was caught embarrassingly flat. "I'm…not exactly sure, sir. We've completed repairs, but I'm not certain of the supply situation, and I have a number of crew placements still to fill."

"Get on it, Admiral. I want the _Endeavour_ on her way to Qo'noS as soon as possible."

"Aye aye, sir."

Familiar orders, not so different to being a captain. Drake decided that he could do this admiral thing after all.

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"Hello. Is Alix about?"

The semi-dressed Orion girl nodded mutely and stepped aside to allow the admiral in. He smiled at her benignly, at once seeing what Alix had found so deeply attractive about her. She was a beautiful woman, her body a sculpture and her round face perpetually cheerful. According to rumours, she had been Admiral Applegate's sweetheart for a while, but she had never been entirely satisfied with him. Drake wondered if Alix knew that she had stolen an admiral's girl, and whether she cared. Probably not.

His friend appeared a few minutes later, dressed in a silk nightgown and a cheeky smile. "Hello, Will. You woke me. And I'd only just got to sleep."

"I don't want to know," Drake assured her.

Alix's smile became bigger and considerably more naughty, and with her eyes she said that she didn't believe what he said – that she was sure he really would be quite interested in the details. She refrained from teasing, however, poured a cup of black coffee for herself and one for Drake. She offered a cup to her friend, but the Orion girl preferred sleep to caffeine, and went upstairs. Alix gestured for Drake to sit on the small sofa and she settled down next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. "What's up?"

"New mission."

"Really? That was quick."

"Delicate situation, and all that."

"Right. Want to fill me in, or do I have to guess?"

"I thought you had your finger on the pulse?"

"I took it off for a few hours and put it –"

"I don't want to know!"

"Yes, you do."

He changed the subject very quickly. "Nwabudike is in dock."

"Really?" Alix sat up, an entirely different kind of cheer in her now. "When did that happen?"

"This morning. I bumped into him on my way to my briefing. Which reminds me, I've arranged to meet him a little later for drinks. You want to come along? I know he'd be happy to see you again."

"Love to. Never say no to a drink."

Drake laughed. "That's one of your problems. I'm amazed that you can stand up this morning."

"So am I, actually."

He frowned. "That's not what I meant. You hit the bars hard last night."

"I have a lot of practice at hitting bars. I can take it. What I'm not so good at is all night –"

"Alix!" Drake admonished, and she laughed until her face was as red as her eyes.

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She was still in great cheer when she and Drake met Nwabudike in one of the starbase's lounges. Decorum and Alix Nain had never been on a first name basis, and when she saw the man she laughed loudly, ran over and leapt onto him, arms and legs wrapping tightly around his chest. Nwabudike laughed boisterously and patted her on the back. "Good to see you, too, Alix."

Nwabudike Lal was Drake's particular friend, they having met at the Academy and having served together in an early commission, but Alix had met him on the _Endeavour_ some years ago and they had taken a liking to each other almost immediately. Alix approached most people expecting to like and be liked. This didn't always happen – a lot of people weren't of the same mindset and wouldn't give her a chance – but when it did the resulting friendship was always of great benefit to both. Alix liked people, and she was steadfastly loyal to her friends, prepared to go to any lengths to help them, as Drake could attest.

The three friends sat and talked at some length, Nwabudike regaling them with tales of his exploits since they had last seen each other, which had been at least three years. He had had some interesting adventures in that time, and Drake and Alix listened intently to everything that he had to say, laughing along with him at his victories, expressing their sympathy at his losses. Nwabudike was a swashbuckling captain, a daredevil. He was greatly admired in some circles for being a charming rogue, and despised in others as arrogant and unreliable. In this respect, he and Alix Nain had a lot in common.

"I could use you, Alix," he said when he had run out of stories to tell. "If you ever get tired of Admiral Drake's tyranny just let me know. I'm sure I could rescue you."

Alix grinned from ear to ear. "Thanks for the offer. I'd love to take you up on it, but Will's already pressed me for one more mission."

"An assignment? Where are you going?"

"Qo'noS," said Drake casually.

"Great! I've always wanted to see Qo'noS."

Something about the way she said that made Drake turn a suspicious look her way. "You haven't been there before, Alix?" He was unsurprised when her only reply was a wonderfully cryptic smile.

"I'll bet she has," said Nwabudike, who knew of Alix's lust for adventure and her time as a private spaceship pilot.

She neatly avoided the topic. "What are we to do on Qo'noS, Will?"

"Diplomatic duties and a little intel gathering. We're going to let the High Council know that we believe they're not behind the attack on Herminie, and see what they know about who did do it."

"Pity we don't have Harrow anymore. This sort of thing is right up his alley."

"Good point. He's still in Klingon space, as far as I know. If we can pick him up that might be useful."

"It could be."

"_And it would give me another chance to visit Mr. Ling. What a joy that could be for both of us!"_

"_Bad. Evil Kana. Naughty,"_ said Alix, as though talking down a child. The demon grinned, completely unreproached.

Conversation continued around her, but Alix had lost the thread of it and she retreated somewhat into her own mind, focusing on herself and her other self. She was so practiced at following a spoken conversation and a mental one simultaneously that she put up a good pretence of listening to what Drake and Nwabudike were saying – answered when spoken to – but her attention was definitely elsewhere.

"_What do you expect we'll find on Qo'noS?"_

"_Aside from a race of simple-minded savages that should have died out eons ago? A large number of very old buildings, I'd imagine."_

"_I meant in the way of answers."_

"_I know you did. If I could answer that question, Alix, it would spare us the necessity of visiting that pathetic world. Unfortunately, I know no more than you do – in this matter, at least."_

"_Do you think we should pay one of the Klingon prisoners another visit?"_

"_We have already interrogated them to the best of our abilities."_ Kana shrugged._ "Of course, we could go back and I could try again. It would be amusing, but a little pointless, and we would doubtless destroy the minds of many of our subjects. I know that you object to that sort of thing."_

"Alix," Drake asked, "do you know how we stand for supplies and equipment?"

She answered without a pause: "I'm afraid not, Will. Hard to keep track of those things from your bed."

He looked genuinely apologetic as he said, "I'm sorry to have to spoil your fun, Alix, but I need you to report back aboard the ship this afternoon and take command. Vicki and Horris are otherwise engaged, and I need a senior officer aboard to whip the crew into shape. We need to be ready to put into space as soon as we can."

"_You can't complain, Alix. You've had a lot of fun,"_ said Kana, with just a hint of spite in her words.

"_True,"_ she reluctantly agreed. "Where will you be, Will?"

"I've still got twenty crew placements to fill."

"Right. I don't suppose my friend…?"

"No."

"Didn't think so."

He considered Alix's relationship with her 'friend' – for friend was surely all that she was to her. He had known Alix Nain for a very long time, and he knew that while she was capable of great friendship, kindness and passion, love was entirely beyond her. She was incapable of feeling it, and did not seem to properly understand what it might be. He wondered what it was about her that made her incapable of forming such close bonds with other people. She could take a friendship to any level, but she couldn't properly feel love. Not romantic love, anyway, affectionate love was within her power. Why was that? She had lost her parents at a very young age; had never had a real family; and she had spent a lot of her life drifting. Was that the explanation? Or was it something else? Was there some deep flaw in her character that kept her from really loving?

In truth, there was one person whom Alix could feel that kind of love towards, but only one: Kana. She could never be so close to another as she was with her alter ego, and so she could never feel so deeply for them. It was, as Drake had surmised, a personality defect, and it was one that arose from her entirely unique personality.

Drake started to feel that they were leaving Nwabudike out of the conversation, and he asked his friend for a few more details of his last mission. Nwabudike was happy to talk, but he was much more interested in hearing about what Drake and Alix had been up to, and in particular about their clash with the Klingon battleship. Drake recounted the battle for him in detail, bits of bread taking the places of the ships in the two squadrons, moving about the table and being eaten by Alix as they were destroyed or otherwise taken out of the fight. By the time he had finished describing the boarding action – leaving the gory details to one side – he had gathered quite an audience. The tale had been told many times, every Endeavour on the base being pressed for their version, but these were the words of Admiral Drake himself, the man who had led the fight, and they were most treasured.

Nwabudike loved every minute of it, and when the story was finished he thumped the table in hearty approval. In addition to being a bit of a rogue, Nwabudike was a fighter, a captain very much in Drake's mould, and he would have given his right arm to be involved in that action. Sadly for him, he commanded a survey ship, and while that gave him ample opportunity for adventure it never allowed him to be involved in a glorious action like that.

Admiral Drake's opinion was that it was a terrible waste. Nwabudike Lal was a warrior, and he deserved to be on a fighting ship. Given the renewed possibility of conflict with the Klingons, Starfleet could certainly do with a man of his talents on the front line.

A thought came to him. There were a large number of ships in mothballs; ships that had been built as warships during the cold war with the Empire and were no longer required in a time of peace. Admiral Granger had mentioned such a vessel to him before – _Indomitable_. He knew that the mothballed craft were being manned and equipped even now, and that they were in need of commanders. There were a lot of unassigned captains, and it was possible that command postings would be assigned by lucky dip, or something similar. That wouldn't be very good for the fleet.

After he had had his drink with Nwabudike, Drake went to his quarters on the starbase and studied the list of available ships and captains. Two hours later, he made his way to Admiral Hamilton's office with a PADD under his arm.

"Come in. Yes, Admiral Drake, what can I do for you?"

"Sir, I understand that you are responsible for reactivating the ships in mothballs here?"

"Yes, Admiral, I am. Why? Do you have some suggestions to make?" Half the personnel on the station had one or two thoughts that they wanted to present on this subject.

"Actually, Admiral, I do have some names that I would like to submit for consideration."

Hamilton took the PADD. "Nwabudike Lal – yes, I had expected to see him. Cole Devlin. Natasha Shimmer. What's this? James Fox?"

"Yes, sir."

"I was under the impression that your respect for Captain Fox was…lacking."

Drake made a gesture that was cousin to nodding and shrugging. "I disagree with his methods when it comes to crew, sir, and he was a weak commodore, but he is a brave and capable fighting captain. Right now, that's what we need."

"I couldn't agree more. You recommend giving him _Indomitable_, though? That's a plum assignment. I'm surprised you didn't reserve it for Captain Lal."

"That would be showing all together too much favouritism, sir. Captain Lal is one of the best fighting captains I've ever known, but he's never commanded anything bigger than a survey ship before. He wouldn't be comfortable with a battleship and a crew of thousands. The _Reckless_ is small ship, but she's very powerful, and I know Nwabudike – Captain Lal, I mean, sir – would do her proud."

Hamilton nodded. "I quite agree. You know, you've saved me a walk, Admiral. I was planning to get your input on all of this. Let me see," he read through the rest of Drake's list and nodded. "Yes, I see we think along similar lines. I was thinking of putting Devlin on the _Indomitable_, though."

Drake disagreed with that as an idea, as he explained. "Captain Devlin was a fighter pilot: his idea of a good ship is a fast, manoeuvrable one. He'd rather his ship could spin on the spot than throw a thunderous great broadside."

"A valid point. Very well, Fox for the _Indomitable_; Devlin can have the _Gonzales_ – a better mover there isn't. Admiral Drake, is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"No, sir."

Hamilton hitched up an eyebrow and gazed at the new admiral. "I'm surprised. I'd half expected you to recommend your first officer for a command. A lot of the others who have been through my office have done that."

"I would honestly like to, sir," lied Drake, "but I don't believe that Commander McDonald is quite ready to lead a ship just yet. Besides which, I'm under orders to get underway as soon as possible, and I don't have the time to recruit competent replacement officers."

"Completely understandable. I won't keep you."

He left the office feeling pleased; sure that he had done his best by his friends and the service as a whole. He had indeed thought long and hard before putting Lal's name onto his list, knowing that he could be accused of favouritism, but the cold hard truth was that Nwabudike was a superior captain, and the fleet needed him. A part of him had also been tempted to recommend Alix for one of the corvettes, but something had stopped him – not worry about showing favouritism, but something altogether more selfish. He did not want to give up his friend.

His next stop after this was to the yards on New Manchester. Admiral Applegate commanded these, and he had grudgingly given Drake free reign to requisition whatever supplies and equipment he deemed necessary. The admiral and his chief engineer wandered the well-equipped yards at leisure, like boys let loose in a toy store, and they spent the rest of the day deliberating over what the ship needed most, picking and choosing amongst the breath-taking array of stores on offer.

Up in space, Alix Nain had retired aboard the _Endeavour_ and assumed command. The ship was immediately familiar, but at the same time slightly changed, and it took her a while to put her finger on just what was different about her. She was a flagship now, belonging as she did to an admiral, and her crew were very much aware of this fact. They had spent the time since they had learnt of Drake's promotion in cleaning and polishing every square inch of the old girl that they could reach, so that now her metal gleamed and her crew's uniforms were clean as could possibly be. Never in her entire long existence had the _Endeavour_ been a flagship before now, never even a pendant ship, her previous masters having abandoned her when they rose above captain. The hands knew this, and they treated the old girl with extraordinary care, they all believing at least on some level that the ship was as proud of her new status as they were.

Lieutenant Nain had rarely commanded the _Endeavour_ when she had been an ordinary starship, so it was ironic that it was she who took the centre chair for the first time when _Endeavour_ was made a flagship. All of the crew were already aboard, by now aware of their new assignment, although it had not yet been officially announced, and the ship was just waiting on a few tonnes of supplies. Alix took a look at the situation and ordered _Endeavour_ to slip her moorings and move out beyond the base. Being docked did nothing to accelerate the loading process; in fact the starbase's bureaucracy was actually slowing things down. The great old starship slid smoothly out of her docking cradle, out of the enormous hull of the base, and back into the comfortable night sky that she knew so well.

Planet side, Admiral Drake had finished making his choices and the last batch of supplies were being whisked up to the orbiting ship, when a nervous young man approached him and saluted. There was something familiar about the man, certain features of his face that Drake was sure he had seen before, but the admiral could not quite place it at first.

"Yes, Crewman? How can I help you?"

"Sir, I…I've heard that you need a few more hands for your ship." It was common knowledge, and Drake had been approached by some hopefuls already. He nodded noncommittally and the man continued: "I was hoping that, perhaps, sir, you might consider my request? I don't have a great deal of ship experience, but I'm hard working and keen to learn."

He admired the sentiment, but a lack of experience certainly counted against the man, there being so many competent starmen available on the starbase. Drake had no need to ship a landsman if he didn't want to. And yet there it was again, something nagging in his mind, telling him that he should recognize this person. "I'll take it under consideration. What is you name?"

"Crewman Lewis, sir. Nathaniel Lewis."

It clicked. "Lewis? Martin Lewis' brother?"

"Yes, sir."

Drake looked at the man tenderly. "Your brother saved my life. I wish I could have done him the same service. Welcome aboard."

It was with this Crewman Lewis in the back that Admiral Drake's gig left New Manchester and climbed up to meet the stars. The craft shot up through a bank of cloud, which grew thinner and thinner by the moment, until it was gone entirely and all that was ahead of them was space.

Space, and the most beautiful sight that Drake had seen in his life. One that brought a tear to his eye, and not just his but the eyes of Chief Fran and Commander McDonald, who was now as passionately attached to her ship as her commander was.

There, highlighted by the setting sun, hung the _Starship Endeavour_, lit from bow to stern by her running lights so that the whole universe could know her name. Simple geometric shapes held together by strong pylons, she was stunning, so much more beautiful than the bulky workhouses of the modern Starfleet. Some might say that she was old, that she belonged to a simpler age, but those people had never been aboard her, had never felt her decks pulse with life, never experienced the speed or the strength that she possessed. Yes she was old, but the reason that she was old was because she was tough enough to laugh in the face of the worst the universe could throw at her.

"There she is," breathed Drake, a man in love.

She grew steadily, until the whole ship was no longer visible, only the gaping mouth of the open shuttle bay. Drake's gig touched down neatly amongst the other shuttles, and immediately a pair of crewmen rushed forward with steps so that the officers could disembark comfortably. Drake and the others received warm welcomes from Lieutenant Nain and the crewmen on duty in the shuttle bay, all of them familiar faces by now.

A new head poked its way uncertainly out of the craft, silently shuffled down the steps to the deck. Admiral Drake beamed at him, and then at Joe Friedman. "A new hand for your department, Mr. Friedman. I'll let you handle the introductions."

"Thank you, sir."

The officers departed; Friedman and his friends approached the new man. "Welcome aboard, mate. What's your name?"

"Nathaniel. Nathaniel Lewis."

"You related to Marty?"

"I'm his brother."

Friedman walked up to him, put an arm around his shoulder and turned him towards the other crewmen. "He's an Endeavour," said Friedman, and there wasn't a man present who disagreed with him. "You any good with a needle, Nathaniel?"

"Not really. Why?"

"No problem. Give your uniforms to Borris; he'll see that you're properly set up. Right, Borris?"

"Ya."


	15. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

The _Endeavour_ was once again a streak of light tearing across space as she retraced her steps into Klingon space at warp nine. She would be travelling farther this time, going beyond the _In'jara'wa_ border station and all the way to the capital planet of Qo'noS itself, but at her higher warp velocity _Endeavour_ would make the trip to the capital in no more time than it had taken her to reach the space station.

Close to a month of solid, uninterrupted passage then, and the crew very quickly came to terms with this; accepted the constant flying through a field of stars as the norm, a fact of life. A steady, comfortable routine was established aboard, a natural order that might have seemed odd to a landsman but was perfectly apparent to any Endeavour; and so the days ticked by at their own pace to the pattern of waking, manning duty stations for eight hours, recreation time, sleep and thus the end of the day. Although now an admiral, Drake was still the ship's captain as well, and his views of how she should be run had changed not one iota. The crew were regularly put through their paces in simulated encounters with a variety of enemy ships. There was no grumbling, no complaints; by now the Endeavours were accustomed to these nightly battle drills, and to them it seemed astonishing that few other ships in the fleet practiced the custom. Even more than it being tradition, though, they had their memory of their triumph over the Klingon cruiser and battleship to focus their thinking. Not only had there been a great deal of glory in those wins, they had also received handsome bonuses, and it occurred to the crew that if a couple of hours a night plying their weapons and going through the procedures of battle could pay off so handsomely once then it could certainly happen again.

A happy, even joyous crew handled the ship as she made her way out of Federation space, across the former Neutral Zone (officially gone now, but still very much alive in the minds of most people), and into Klingon territory. A few hours after she entered Klingon space a cruiser approached the _Endeavour_, and the hands were all prepared to give her everything they had, until it turned out that she was a border patrol ship sent to investigate them. After confirming the _Endeavour_'s identity and destination, the cruiser went on its way, and the disappointed crewmen returned to their duty.

"I've rarely seen a crew so eager for action," remarked Drake, relaxing in his ready room with his friend and a bottle of burgundy.

"There's still a lot of resentment about what happened to Herminie. The crew want to see the perpetrators brought to justice." A certain eagerness appeared in Alix's eyes. "And they did get a great heap of swag after our last battle. Even split amongst five hundred men it was a good day's work. They're keen for more."

"I hope they're not expecting the Midas touch on this one. That last scrap was a lucky fluke."

"Doesn't stop them from hoping. Doesn't stop us from hoping."

"I love that piratical gleam in your eye, Alix. And we might perhaps hope for…no, let's not tempt fate."

"_Interesting the way those old sailing superstitions have hung on into this day and age,"_ remarked Kana Nain, standing off in the corner of the room and playing with a yo-yo, to the bafflement of her host. _"Tempting fate and scratching wood. Foolish ideas."_

"I've been meaning to ask you ever since we left spacedock," Drake said, pouring himself another glass. "You never did answer my question: have you been to Qo'noS?"

She decided to be honest, just this once. There wasn't much point in lying, anyway – too many people on the planet might recognize her and give her away. "I have, actually. Just the once, though. I was…well, that's neither here nor there."

He didn't press the issue. "What was your impression?"

Alix pulled up what she could remember of her time on Qo'noS, and what she could safely say to Drake without blowing the secret of her second self's existence. "Cold. Very cold. Of course, that was before Praxis did the big firework, and I hear things have changed a lot since then. My biggest impression of the place was of it being very, very old. Old and musty – intimidatingly so. Like the exhibits in the British Museum: everything seemed to have been standing since time before time. I remember Kana saying she was surprised that none of the buildings had fallen down yet."

"Kana?"

Alix mentally hit herself. "A friend."

"_Nice recovery."_

Still, Alix blushed. That had been a slip there, and a dangerous one. She had never so much as mentioned Kana's name before; had never shared the secret of her other self with anyone, and never planned to. Once or twice, in her more philosophical moments, she had contemplated telling Will, believing that he would understand, would accept this truth about her, but she never did. Whenever she considered talking the ugly face of Dr. R'nari would swell up in her mind and clamp her lips. The lying and hiding was necessary; she had seen what happened when the secret was exposed.

It had happened more than once. Doctor R'nari had been the first, and for her the most infamous time, but it had happened again since then. Knowledge of the Destroyer and her power had made her the target of greedy, selfish people, had turned friends into enemies, and in those few who could accept the truth about her and not be tempted to claim Kana for themselves it had at least changed the dynamic of the friendship. Alix was not prepared to risk soiling her relationship with Drake – she treasured it far too greatly

_Concentrate, girl_, she warned herself. _Another slip like that and we're in trouble._

Drake was looking at her. "I suppose if I ask about this friend of yours you won't tell me anything about her – I assume it is a her?"

"That would be telling."

"Thought as much," Drake grinned, hardly bothered that she was keeping yet another secret from him, unaware of the monumental significance of this one. "Getting back to Qo'noS; any other thoughts you'd like to share?"

"It's a very dangerous place; dangerous even for Klingons. Virtually all of the major Houses own land on Qo'noS, and they all have a percentage of the population swearing loyalty to them. It's not uncommon to see gangs from different Houses murdering each other in the street. Assassins are two a penny, you can make an enemy just with a look, and if you don't keep your guard up at all times you're inviting someone to stick something sharp in you."

"Pleasant." Drake winced.

"It is." Alix sounded remarkably unperturbed. Of course, she had so much less to fear than most of her kind. "Like I said, though, I was there before Praxis exploded. Things might have changed since then, but if they have I doubt it'll be a change for the better. Any landing party should be armed, obviously armed, and I would strongly advise leaving Wolf on the ship. The capital is a powder keg, and with her tendency to act on instinct Wolf could well act as a spark."

"Thanks for the thought. I don't suppose you've seen the council chambers?"

"I might have."

Drake determined not to ask what a young Alix Nain might have been doing in the Klingon government building. "And what might your impression of it be?"

"A very big, very dark, very empty hall. No chairs, except for where the Chancellor sits. Council members gather in a big huddle near to the chair and shout at each other until a decision is reached – I'm told that it eventually happens, anyway; I watched for days and didn't see anything like it." She grinned, enjoying her own joke. "It's not much of what we'd call a government, Will. And one nut job with a hand grenade could blow the whole lot sky high; their security procedures aren't exactly brilliant."

"I'll remember that. Alix, during your visit to Qo'noS, is that when you met General Kravft?"

"No." Her answer was short; she was determined to tell him nothing. However by now Drake had already learnt some of the story from another source, and he said, "He told me a little about your meeting. He mentioned something about a battle?"

Alix laughed bitterly. "It wasn't a battle."

"_It was a slaughter. I hadn't known you were capable of killing so many."_ The whispered words made Alix wince. She remembered all too clearly what had happened: one of the times when she had stood amongst the dead on a battlefield, a river of blood flowing around her. To this day she didn't know how many had died, in total or by her hand. Both armies had been decimated, and the Klingons forced to withdraw their occupying forces. Alix and her allies had won the day, but the cost had been astronomical.

"General Kravft gave me a few details. Said something about Klingon forces seeking to conquer a little planet along their borders with the Romulan Star Empire; seize its dilithium reserves. Something about how, shortly after they landed, an army was led against them by a teenage human, called the Destroyer by her men. How that same Destroyer wiped out two Klingon battalions and drove Kravft's forces from the planet."

"I don't suppose he mentioned what's happened to the world since then?"

Drake shook his head. "He's never been back, and neither has the Empire. Couldn't afford the kind of losses you inflicted."

"Neither could they," she whispered, thinking of the primitive people whom she and Kana had whipped up into a fighting force.

"You never told me you'd led armies."

"I've had an interesting life."

Drake eyed her critically. "So what should I call you? General? Lieutenant? Have you been an admiral and not told me? Destroyer?"

"I like Destroyer. I'm quite partial to Alix, as well."

He ran his fingers through her hair to show her that he felt no ill will towards her for keeping these secrets, knowing that Alix loved to have her hair stroked. She sighed with pleasure and leant against the muscular frame of her friend, knowing herself to be forgiven, and reassured that Drake would ask no more questions of her for the time being.

When later he did ask, she'd be prepared with lies ready to tell.

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Six days from Qo'noS, a Klingon ship approached the _Endeavour_: a fast strike cruiser; not excessively well armed, but designed for speed and manoeuvrability. Drake watched the approaching vessel on the forward screen. They had dropped down to impulse for this unexpected rendezvous, and the Klingon ship seemed to be creeping towards them achingly slowly.

"Have they responded to hails yet?"

"We've received an audio message from their captain," McDonald responded. "They say they're an escort, sent by the High Council to bring us to Qo'noS."

Drake considered it. A possibility, he believed. The Klingons certainly knew that they were coming, and despite the peace treaty he very much doubted that the Klingon government would be happy to have a Federation starship wandering about freely behind their lines. He knew that, in their position, he would certainly send out a ship to escort any Klingon vessel into a Federation port.

"What do you think, Alix?"

"I don't know," she said, looking and feeling confused. "It seems right but…do you feel your guts twisting?"

"I do."

"Can't put my finger on it, but something's…off."

Drake walked over to the communications console, keeping his eyes on the screen as he moved. "Vicki, have they given the private signal?"

She looked up from her boards, her face scrunched up. "That's the strangest thing, sir. They sent out something, but it was badly garbled. I've asked them to repeat, but…"

"Sarn, any indication that their comm system's taken damage?"

"Scanning," she leant over her instruments, light from her monitors playing across her face, accentuating the harsh lines of her Vulcan skull. "Their systems appear normal."

"Will, take a look at this. See the way they're manoeuvring? It's subtle, but if they keep it up they'll pass right across our prow in a few more minutes."

"Putting them in a good position to rake us," Drake mused, knowing that was what his friend was thinking as well. "Brok, are their weapons charged?"

"No clear indication, sir. I'm detecting what could be power signatures, but they're muffled. Could just be anomalies in their EPS grid."

Drake was not prepared to believe that. He recognized these manoeuvres: setting up for a good firing position, subtly arming, flashing out something to substitute the private signal…all tricks that he had used against superior opponents in the past, all designed to confuse the target and give the other captain a few vital minutes to prepare his assault.

"Vicki, demand they repeat the private signal immediately."

A flash of gibberish. She shook her head. "I didn't get it, sir."

"Red alert! All hands to battle stations! Mr. Brok, shields up, weapons active. Lock our phasers on their impulse engines and weapon systems. Commander McDonald, signal that ship and demand their immediate surrender."

The Klingon vessel responded immediately, revealing herself to be exactly what Drake had begun to believe her to be. Shields went up and a barrage of disruptor fire streaked across space, exploding against the _Endeavour_'s defences before Alix could get the ship out of the way. Although the alert had been blaring, no one had quite expected an attack straight away, and when the hits landed and the ship bucked, people throughout _Endeavour_ were thrown to the deck.

"Return fire, Brok."

_Endeavour_'s phasers spoke; three of her shots landed home, but two more went wide as the strike cruiser began evasive manoeuvres. She looped above the big starship and let fly with another barrage of disruptor fire, streaking across the _Endeavour_'s dorsal and away into space before Brok could pin her with return fire.

The starship shook again, and the overhead lighting dimmed as the computer automatically redirected nonessential power to reinforce the shields at the points of impact. The lights came on strong again just a second later, after the final hit had landed, but those brief moments of gloom quite frightened some of the new Endeavours, who had not been in a battle before. Their friends comforted and reassured them as best they could – it would be over soon – the admiral would take care of those Klingons – they'd feel _Endeavour_'s bite. Good words, kindly meant, and they had the desired effect; the frightened hands returned to their work.

"Damn, she's fast!" Alix hissed. "I can't keep us out of their line of fire."

"Then get them into ours. We've got a stronger punch," said Drake, leaning over her shoulder, monitoring the flow of the engagement on her instruments. He didn't need any advanced helm training to recognize that the red blip was the enemy, the green _Endeavour_, and to follow their respective manoeuvres.

"Right."

The _Endeavour_'s broadside came into play a moment later, every one of her starboard phasers erupting in one all-mighty blast. Quick and nimble as she undoubtedly was, the strike cruiser could not evade this terrible storm of destructive force; neither could her shields turn it aside. _Endeavour_'s broadside shredded Klingon defences and marred the pristine beauty of her hull, ripping great deep gashes into her armour plating before she could veer off and put her still-strong rear shields towards the starship.

"Keep on them, Alix. Brok, fire as your weapons come to bare."

For twenty long minutes the exchange of fire continued; within five it was perfectly clear to whom the victory would go. The Klingon ship was quick, but she couldn't throw anything like the weight of fire the _Endeavour_ commanded, and neither could she take the kind of wallop that the starship was capable of shrugging aside. Alix couldn't fly the ship fast enough to avoid all of the Klingon attacks, but she could keep Brok's weapons trained on their target more often than not, and the starship's phasers struck again and again with frightening force. Shields and hull crumbled under the relentless barrage, until finally a lucky shot knocked something loose in the Klingon's engines and they stalled in space, unable to fight on.

"They're dead in the water, sir," Brok advised.

"Keep your phasers trained on her, Mr. Brok. Lieutenant Wolf, Alix, let's form a boarding party. Commander McDonald, signal that ship and let them know we're coming across. Advise them that if they don't surrender we will take their ship by force."

"Aye, sir."

The Klingons did actually surrender, which took Drake by surprise. They did not do so right away of course, drawing their swords when the boarders materialized and clashing with tremendous force, but it was immediately apparent that they had no chance of winning. Lieutenant Wolf was a killing animal, and she made short, bloody work of anyone who came near her or her pack; Alix stepped back to allow Kana to have some fun; and between the predator and the Destroyer, the Klingon crew stood no chance. There was honour in glorious battle, but none in a fool's suicide, and the crew surrendered after just two minutes of fighting.

Drake had the most elaborately dressed Klingon brought before him. "You are the commanding officer?"

The Klingon held his head high, his chin up and defiance in his eyes. "I am Captain Narrgoth."

"Admiral Drake. You speak for your men?"

"I do."

"Then inform them that they are prisoners of war. Your officers will be held aboard _Endeavour_, your crew will be placed in the brig on this ship."

"We have no brig."

Of course not, he reminded himself. Klingons weren't in the habit of taking prisoners.

"Then they will be put in the hold. Lieutenant Wolf?"

"Yes, sir."

"Carry on." He took out his communicator; flipped it open. "Drake to _Endeavour_."

"McDonald here, Admiral."

"Send across Chief Fran and a prize-crew, Commander. We're taking possession of this ship."

"Understood, sir."

"Alix."

"Yes?" Said Kana.

"Come with me. You too, Captain."

They bundled Narrgoth into his own cabin, two security officers on guard outside the door, and Kana's bloody dagger never leaving her hand. The captain had witnessed her in combat, as dangerous as the animal, and he had no wish to be added to her pile of victims. He sat very still indeed while Drake paced up and down in front of him, visibly angry and just barely able to contain it.

The admiral stopped abruptly, turned on his prisoner and speared him with stormy green eyes, filled with intense dislike. "I want to know why you attacked my ship, Captain. I want to know now."

"I will say nothing."

"You are a prisoner of war, and you will answer my questions."

"I have pledged my honour to say nothing to my enemies. You will not make me break my vow. I know Starfleet rules and regulations." He nodded towards Kana. "Your lieutenant may look fierce with her knife in her hand, but you will never allow her to torture me with it."

"If I were to step out of that door for five minutes and leave Alix in here with you, I would not be in any way responsible for what happened."

Narrgoth looked at the lieutenant with renewed fascination. "Alix? Nain? So you are the legendary Destroyer?"

A low purr: "In the flesh."

"Why do you side with Starfleet?"

"It keeps me amused."

"When my brothers crush your ship, I hope you find it just as amusing."

"I adore Klingon humour," she said, cackling meanly.

"Enough unpleasantries." Drake did not share her high spirits. "Captain Narrgoth, one way or the other, you will tell me what I want to know."

"You will not torture me."

He folded his arms and looked at the Klingon with contempt. "I don't need to. My science officer is Vulcan; she can pull everything I want to know straight out of your head."

"A bluff," Narrgoth sneered.

"I don't bluff." His communicator was in his hand, already open. "Commander Sarn. Please report aboard the Klingon ship immediately. I have an uncooperative prisoner who requires your special touch."

"On my way, sir." She had been expecting the order.

The Klingon's expression changed to one of worry. Kana leant her face into his and grinned toothily. "Before it's over, you're going to wish you'd been left to my tender mercies."

She wasn't wrong. Commander Sarn arrived a few minutes later; looking as cold and severe as only a Vulcan could, and it immediately became clear to Narrgoth that this was no masterful bluff on the admiral's part. The Vulcan advanced on him and Narrgoth sprung to his feet, scrabbling to put some distance between himself and her. He had heard all about the Vulcan mind meld: how it could suck the life, the very soul from a man, turn him into an unthinking puppet of his Vulcan master, rob him of any chance of real life and honour. He tried to get away, but Kana was at his side and she pinned him into his chair with one hand, her knife held at his throat. The Vulcan took a further step and then he felt her cold fingers on his face. Felt something else as well; something dark and slippery move through his thoughts; he was suddenly very groggy, very weak, no longer able to resist in any way the hands that were touching him, nor to feel the knife held against his neck.

"I think you can step back now, Alix," said Drake, and with something that sounded like disappointment she did so, neatly flicking the combat knife into its place on her belt. "Sarn?"

A nod, but that was all. Her mind and Narrgoth's were now joined, mixed into one, and she was no longer completely aware of her own body: no longer in full control of herself, as her mind was spread evenly between herself and the Klingon. The nod was the best response that she could manage.

"Who are you?" Drake asked, beginning the interrogation.

Sarn and Narrgoth spoke as one, a confused choir reading: "Captain Narrgoth, son of Kem'Pah; master of the _Imperial Strike Ship Kra't'nal_."

"Who do you serve?"

"General Han'tH."

"A familiar name," whispered Kana.

"What was your mission?"

"Intercept Federation starship bound for capital. Destroy ship."

"Why?"

"Prevent Starfleet envoy…reaching High Council."

"They want to keep our side of the story away from the ears of government," Kana said. "War must be close."

"Try not to sound so happy, Lieutenant. Narrgoth, what do you know about Klingon plans for a war with the Federation?"

No reply, Sarn tightened her grip on her unwilling fount of information, probed more deeply; the Klingon shook beneath her, pain shooting through his body; a deep groan broke from his lips, and as the pain back lashed into Sarn she released her grip on him, broke the meld, and stepped away. "He does not know."

A disappointment, but not entirely unexpected, Narrgoth was commander of a small and weak warship, a nobody, and Drake hadn't expected him to be well briefed on his leaders' plans. He looked at the Klingon captain, sagging in his chair, emotionally and physically drained by his experience and felt a stab of pity for him: a forced mind meld could not be at all pleasant. "Put him in the brig, Alix."

During the walk, Narrgoth regained some of his strength and more of his confidence. He turned his head towards Nain, having to cast his eyes downwards to meet her hotly burning red eyes. "It doesn't make a difference what you know. There will be war, and you will be destroyed."

"I think not," replied Kana. "I'm the Destroyer; I decide who lives and who dies. Be thankful that Drake still has a use for you, otherwise the Barge of the Dead would be receiving another passenger now."

The Barge transported dishonoured souls to Gre-Thor; the implication was not lost on Narrgoth. "You dare to question my honour?"

"How can I question it when it does not exist?" She threw him into a cell and grinned antagonistically through the force field. "You'll have plenty of time to reflect on my words while you rot in there."

"_Do you absolutely have to ridicule everyone we met?"_

"_It keeps me amused."_

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Aboard the Klingon ship, Drake and his chief engineer inspected the damage they had inflicted; quite severe for such a short engagement; the hull had been horribly mauled and would require several weeks in spacedock to be fully restored to its original glory; the starboard impulse engine was completely shot away, and the primary reactor off line. Chief Fran was amazed that the whole thing hadn't fallen apart long ago, and said so.

"All credit to Klingon engineers, sir, they know how to build these things to stand a pounding. None of ours could have taken such a beating and held together – _Endeavour_ being the only exception I can think of, sir."

That, of course, went without saying, but Drake nodded anyway. "Can she be salvaged?"

"I still haven't completed my inspection, sir, but from what I've seen, with basic repairs we can get her in shape for warp travel in less than a week. I can't vouch for her holding together all the way to Seventy, though, sir."

"Will she make it to Qo'noS?"

Not a question that Fran had devoted any thought to. He hurriedly did so now. "Why, yes, sir…I imagine so."

Drake smiled. "The crew will have to forgo the prize-money on this occasion, I'm afraid. Presenting that ship to the High Council should help support our case. It's one of Han'tH's ships."

"Aye, sir." He didn't sound best pleased, but then the chief knew better than most the value of their captured prize.

"Assign whatever men you feel necessary, Chief. I want to be underway again as soon as possible."

Engineers swarmed aboard the captured ship and went immediately to work. Klingon technology and ship design was noticeably different to Federation standard, but there were certain similarities, and Chief Fran had spent a fair amount of his working life poking his head into the guts of alien spacecraft; he could guide his men through the difficult task of getting the cruiser ready for flight.

Word of the admiral's decision with regard to their prize quickly circled around the ship, and the disappointed hands found themselves considerably poorer than they had thought to be since the action. For a while there was some grumbling around the lower decks, until Friedman pointed out to his mates that although they might forfeit the prize-money there was still the head money to consider: the sum based on the number of men aboard the enemy ship at the beginning of the engagement. It would be no great amount, but it would more than double this month's wage for every man aboard, and that was of some comfort.

"Seems I'm not the only pirate in the crew," Alix remarked to Drake as they walked around the captured _Kra't'nal_, inspecting Fran's repair job. "The men were very unhappy about your decision, until someone reminded them about the head money."

"It was a tough call to make; I know the love of money as well as anyone. But taking a prize inside Klingon space could have a negative impact on our dealings with the Klingons, and we can't afford that. Hopefully handing her over to the High Council will be seen as a token of good faith."

"I hope so, too. But we still did fire on the ship, whatever else. Our enemies can use that against us."

He sighed heavily. "And they will. Alix, I can't lie, I'm not looking forward to this. When we reach Qo'noS…I'm a fighter, not a diplomat. Maybe the Admiralty should have sent someone else. Captain T'pek negotiated peace between the Chaam and the Condlin, as I remember. He might have been a better choice."

Alix entirely disagreed. "Klingons respect a fighter, Will; they have no respect for a lawyer."

That was meant to be reassuring, he realized. He appreciated the gesture. "Respect is one thing. Getting them to see things as we do, getting them to acknowledge the truth…that could be something else entirely."

"I don't suppose we've found where Harrow's got to?"

"He's still on _In'jara'wa_. Until Kravft gets back from the High Council he's going nowhere. The general has apparently instructed that he's not to leave the station – for his own protection. Given that a couple of our diplomats have been attacked in other parts of the Empire, I'm prepared to believe that Kravft's acting out of genuine concern. We have to do this alone, Alix."

She absorbed this and felt unperturbed. The only person that Alix ever relied upon, apart from herself, was Kana. She really didn't care if Harrow was around to help or not; so long as Kana was there she would be confident of their success.

"Well, I can't pretend to know anything about diplomacy, Will, but if you need someone to scare your opponents into silence…"

That at last made him smile. "Don't worry, Red Eyes, you'll be in the landing party. I wouldn't want to set foot on an alien shore without you."

"Nice to be appreciated."

The _Kra't'nal_ was far from perfect, but Fran's work had at least brought her into operation condition. Drake allowed Commander McDonald to put together her own crew and left the warship in her hands. With her Klingon escort flying on her wing, the _Endeavour_ resumed her flight to Qo'noS after only three days' delay.

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"After we secured the ship, sir, I asked questions of her commanding officer," Drake said, completing his recount of the brief action to Admiral McCaffrey. "He confirmed one thing that we'd suspected – General Han'tH was his commander, and the man who sent him to intercept us."

"At least we're sure of our enemy now."

"Yes, sir. Unfortunately, from other things that he said it now seems clear that a full-scale war is not far off. I fear that Han'tH and his allies might have been spreading lies in the council chambers."

"Our envoys on Qo'noS have reported a frosty atmosphere recently. This is damned messy business, Admiral, and you're going to have to tread carefully. How soon can you be to Qo'noS?"

"We're making best speed now, sir; a little under six days."

McCaffrey nodded. "I don't have to tell you to crack on as hard as ever you can, Will. If you don't get there in time we could have the war that all of us have been dreading, and Starfleet's not in the position of strength it was back when Praxis exploded."

"I understand, sir."

He closed the comm and leant back in his chair, trying to relax and finding it difficult. His ready room was empty; how he longed for Alix's presence right now: that self-confident smirk and those cheery red eyes – so beautiful when one got used to them. The future seemed so clouded, so dark and full of danger, and he longed for her to tell him that everything was going to be all right; he'd believe it coming from her.

At that particular time, Alix Nain was elsewhere; she was just walking into the mess hall, changed out of her uniform into her more comfortable long navy coat, and feeling pretty good about herself. She joined the line for food and happily accepted the strange blue noodles that were heaped onto her plate – a generous helping for the treasured helmsman. She looked about for a place to sit, and found that the tables were all full or mostly full, and while the hands were perfectly willing to make room for her she didn't want to split up their groups. In a corner she saw Commander Sarn sitting alone at a small table; she popped a cheery smile onto her face and approached.

"Hey, Sarn."

"Alix."

"Is there something wrong? You don't look so good."

Sarn brought her eyes up and met the helmsman's concerned look. She had been staring at her hands, inspecting them from every angle, as Alix had observed. Strange behaviour. "I touched him, Alix."

From the burn in her voice Alix could guess which 'him' she referred to. "Yeah, I noticed that."

"I feel so dirty."

"Yeah…soap will take care of that."

"It is not just the physical contact, Alix. I touched his mind; I felt his thoughts. The mind meld is a deeply personal thing; the closest my barren race gets to expressing itself. What I did with that Klingon… We…" She stopped suddenly and turned a look of intense frustration on the helmsman. "You are not Vulcan, you cannot understand."

"Try me."

"It would mean nothing to you. You are human."

"_She's getting angrier. I could have handled that better."_

Kana snorted. _"_I_ could have done it better."_

"_Thanks, that makes me feel so good."_

"I'm not the one you're angry at," she said aloud.

There was such intense, irrational hatred in her when Sarn said: "Yes, you are."

"Sarn, calm down, take a deep breath. Get some control over yourself."

Control was not something that the Vulcan was currently capable of. With a snarl of rage she threw over the table and launched herself at the helmsman. A vicious backhand crushed Alix to the deck, and as the startled eating crewmen sprang to their feet and wondered just what the hell was going on, Sarn advanced on the fallen lieutenant, fists clenched.

"Don't do this," Alix said, and she sounded pleading.

Sarn threw a fist at her head, intending to crush her skull. Nain's hand snapped up and caught the fist in mid-flight. She was on her feet instantly, her eyes glowing with power. A step, a twist, and Sarn was held against the floor, her right arm pulled back as far as it would go and Nain's boot pinning her down despite her struggles.

"I could crush every bone in your body right now," Nain whispered into her ear. "Do you know how easy it would be for me?"

Security charged in, phasers drawn, and quickly took stock of the situation. They had been called because apparently Sarn had been attacking Nain, although from the looks of things it was the other way around. The helmsman looked over at them, her eyes shining curiously, and she flashed her teeth – the expression being far too unpleasant to be called a smile. She stepped away from the snarling, snapping Vulcan and allowed her to be handcuffed.

"Take the bitch to medical. Maybe Ilerson can dissect her and see what's wrong with her head."

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Admiral Drake was informed of the situation right away, and he came down to sickbay to see the patient. Sarn had attempted to take out Doctor Ilerson's eyes and the skin of the nurse attending her, and had been sedated. She now looked remarkably peaceful, like a sleeping child.

"Some after-effect of the mind meld?" Drake guessed, when he had been told of what happened.

"That's my hypothesis," the doctor said. "We still know so little about how the process works and what really goes on with it. It's possible that what she saw in there upset her, or perhaps some of Captain Narrgoth's anger ended up in her."

"You think that's what caused her to attack Alix?"

"I think that might be what caused her loss of self-control. As for her attack on Lieutenant Nain, well…Vulcans are a very passionate people, although you might believe otherwise. Vulcan emotions are extremely violent and powerful, and when they get out of hand… I don't think that Lieutenant Nain was specifically targeted, sir, I don't think there was any malice at work; she was probably just the closest person around when Sarn…lost it."

Cold comfort there. Sarn hadn't wanted to murder his friend; she had just wanted to kill anyone who she could get her hands on. Probably a good thing, then, that it was Alix who had met the Vulcan's anger. At least she could fight back. "What are you proposing to do?"

"Honestly, I don't really have a treatment. Vulcan breakdowns are extremely rare, and when they do happen…let's just say that they're covered up fast. The Vulcans don't like stories to get out. There's almost nothing in the medical library on a case like this. Without a trained psychiatrist aboard, or a Vulcan healer who might understand these things, I think our best bet is to keep Sarn restrained and keep her under observation. Hopefully it'll…sort itself out."

That didn't sound like a very scientific approach to the admiral. He was not one who believed in the healing powers of crystals or positive thinking; he believed in drugs and technology. "And if it doesn't?"

Ilerson shrugged helplessly. "I wish I could be of more help, Admiral. The Vulcan mind is a great mystery, and as I've said we know so little about how to treat it. This one's really up to Sarn right now. Either she'll get better, or we'll have to keep her in secured quarters until we return to starbase. In this condition she's too dangerous to be left to roam the ship."

"Understood, Doctor. Keep me apprised."

Nain was waiting for him in the corridor, leaning against the bulkhead with her arms folded across her small chest. She spoke the instant that he stepped out of the door, before he even realized that she was there. "It's not your fault, Will."

His voice was pained. "Isn't it? I ordered her to perform the mind meld. I didn't know that there were risks like this involved. I was too impatient."

"We had to find out what Narrgoth knew. More is at stake here than just Sarn. And she certainly knew the risks when she agreed to go ahead with the meld."

He knew all of that, of course, but knowing it changed nothing. He still felt responsible, and he still was responsible. Sarn was his crewman. That made anything that happened to her his responsibility.

"Still, I can't help…" He sighed. "I wish I could distance myself from my emotions like you can."

"It might be better for us if Sarn could, rather than you."

"Damn it, Alix, that's not funny!"

"The truth rarely is, Will."

He glared at her for a moment without much conviction. He couldn't stay angry with Alix, and whenever he tried he just ended up feeling disappointed in her instead. "Alix, I love you like a sister, but I absolutely hate that darkness in you."

She was quite unaffected by that reproach. "I'm afraid, Will, that you're going to see a lot more of my dark side in the days ahead. She's better at handling Klingons than I am."

"Just try and contain it, okay?"

"I'll do my best."

Foolishly, Drake believed her. Foolishly, because Alix's track record of honesty with him was not good anyway: foolishly, because Alix Nain had absolutely no intention of bottling up the Destroyer, locking her away. She believed that she could, if not exactly control, then at least direct the great and powerful beast that dwelt within her.

This thought, as well, was rather foolish.


	16. Interchapter 2

**Interchapter**

"You are indeed a curious creature," said Doctor R'nari, peering at her from the other side of the glass, a tricorder whirring and flashing in his hands. "My scans show you to be quite normal. Completely human, not the slightest trace of an anomaly in your makeup; with the exception of your quite remarkable eyes. Unusual pigmentation: quite unheard of in your species."

"Let me out," the girl begged, or would have if she had been able to breathe or speak. The air was getting staler by the minute, and the Romulans no longer needed to drug her to keep her on the edge of unconsciousness; suffocation was doing the job just as nicely. She couldn't speak, could barely move the muscles of her jaw, but all the same R'nari seemed to hear her. "Now that wouldn't be very wise on my part, would it? Oh, you look helpless enough, and your pretence of agony is quite believable, but I know the truth. I have spent my life studying you: learning the legends, memorising the myths. I've visited hundreds of worlds, and on scores of those planets I've found evidence of your passing: a few bits of bone here and there for your genocides, a temple built to appease you – although I doubt such paltry offerings had much effect. No, I know quite well what you really are."

He stepped back and admired her again. "It's quite an excellent disguise; if it weren't for the eyes you'd look completely human. Quite sweet and innocent, as well. How do you manage that? How can a creature old as time itself, a killer with no equal, put up a believable pretence of pure innocence? Are you a great actor, as well as a great butcher?"

She wanted to tell him that he was wrong: that she was exactly as she appeared to be, that her innocence was no act, that he really was harming her, but it was impossible.

R'nari didn't need to be told, anyway. He was quite capable of thinking for himself. His mind was sick, but it was also brilliant. "Perhaps there is another explanation. Perhaps my tricorder tells me the truth. Perhaps you really are just a little human girl. But if that is the case, why do you bare such a striking resemblance to the beast? Hair colour, eye colour, the features of your face…all match the known characteristics of the Destroyer. Is there another explanation, though? Perhaps you aren't the Destroyer. Perhaps you are merely a host to that being. Is that the case? Just nod. Technician, increase the oxygen supply to the prisoner. You can breathe better now, my dear? Excellent. Now, are you a host, girl? Do you understand the question? Does the Destroyer live inside you?"

"Yes."

"_Host!"_ Hissed the terrifying figment. _"Why did you tell him that?"_

"She lives in you, indeed? Fascinating. Now, my dear…just how do we let out your alter ego?"

"_Another dream?"_

"_R'nari again,"_ Alix replied, wiping the sweat from her brow. There was a bucket of it. _"This can't go on, Kana."_

The Destroyer sat on the edge of her bed, regarding her compassionately. _"What happened in your dream, Alix?"_

"_R'nari shared his theories with me. He asked me if I was a host and…and I told him! Oh God, I told him. I told that bastard what he wanted to know!"_

"_I remember, Alix."_

Fresh tears welled up in Alix's eyes and Kana looked away, allowing her host to weep in peace and privacy. Anyone else in the universe and she would have watched with glee, but Kana loved her host and didn't enjoy seeing her suffer.

"_I should have kept my mouth shut! If I hadn't told him…"_

"_You were young, Alix, and you didn't know what people are capable of."_

"_If I'd said nothing, Kana…"_

Kana soothed: _"He would have found out anyway, Alix. R'nari had dedicated his life to learning whatever he could about me. As soon as he learnt of you he was never going to stop until he'd found out everything. He would have tortured you until he discovered what he wanted to know."_

"_I still didn't have to open my fat mouth and tell him. You tried to tell me that our secret was dangerous, but I didn't take you seriously. My own fault."_

"_Alix, please stop beating yourself up."_

She looked at her other self through a film of tears. _"Why?"_

"_Because I hate having to cheer you up, Alix. It goes against my character. Listen, it was long ago and far away. Yes, it was a terrible experience – for both of us – but we survived, time has moved on, and you learnt your lesson: you've certainly been more careful about keeping our secret since. Besides, in some small way the experience was good for us. Without R'nari, we might never have learned the how to perform the Change."_

"_It was a painful lesson to learn, Kana."_

"_But a necessary one,"_ she insisted._ "You aren't like others of your kind, but they mustn't know that. Humans are greedy, power-hungry, selfish and stupid by nature; the other humanoids aren't much better. Your kind are so easily corrupted by power, and people who get just a taste always yearn for more. You're a rare exception, and that's what makes you such a good host for me; you have no desire to bend me to your will or claim my power for yourself. If anything, you want to burden me with your morality. Few others could boast something like that. It's why you have to keep the secret. Alix, I think you have one more nightmare ahead of you. I think you know what about."_


	17. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

"You look like Hell," said Commander McDonald.

"Thanks. Hell must be pretty good looking, then." Alix chuckled a little at her own joke, but her heart wasn't in it. "I had a crappy night, sir."

"Doesn't look like you got much sleep."

"Bugger all. Hey, what are you doing here, Commander? Shouldn't you be on the _Kal_…whatever it is? That Klingon ship."

"I've left it in the hands of Mr. Claise. The admiral wanted me aboard to discuss our tactics for dealing with the High Council. You didn't get the memo?"

"Might have. I don't remember. Got any coffee on you?"

"Sorry."

"Okay. I'm going to swing by the mess and grab a pot or three. Want anything while I'm down there?"

"No, I'm fine."

Alix waved awkwardly and climbed into a turbolift; McDonald carried on her way to the conference room, wondering just what it was that had kept the helmsman awake all night. Maybe she'd been more freaked by Sarn's attack than she had been letting on; McDonald knew that she would have trouble sleeping if a Vulcan went for her throat. A Vulcan showing anger and violence, or any emotion at all for that matter…weird. Her neat little stereotype of the race was in danger of coming apart, and she liked that stereotype.

"How's our science officer?" She asked, upon entering the briefing room. Drake was the only other person present and he replied with a shrug. "No change. She tried to bite Nurse Galloway's hand off this morning, so she's back under sedation. Have you seen Alix? She usually beats me to these things."

"I ran into her in the corridor, sir. She said she'd had trouble sleeping and she was going to get some coffee."

"She's obviously not thinking straight this morning; I always have a pot set aside for her."

McDonald settled down in her chair and observed, "I don't think she slept much at all last night, Admiral. She looked haunted."

"That frightens me, Vicki. It takes a lot to spook Alix." He didn't want to dump a lot of worries onto the commander, and so he changed the topic. "How's your ship?"

"Falling apart at the seams, sir. We're holding her together with tape and tubs of glue at the moment. I just hope she makes it to Qo'noS."

"So do I. We could give you a tow, Commander. A tractor beam spread around the ship might hold her together."

McDonald shuddered. "It might. It also might pull her apart. For the moment, we're not that desperate, sir."

The rest of the senior staff arrived in dribs and drabs, Alix far later than everyone else and cradling a steaming cup in her hand. She stumbled into the room, took a look at the shining silver pot on the table and muttered, "Oh yeah. Should've thought of that."

Drake decided to begin just as soon as everyone was in the room. "Take your places, please. As you're all aware, we're now less than nineteen hours from Qo'noS, and we don't have much real idea what's waiting for us there. We've confirmed the identity of our enemy, General Han'tH, but apart from a few snippets of his military and political record, Starfleet doesn't know much about him. We're unsure of his current political strength or allies, and so far we've not been able to determine any real motivation for his attacks."

"Old grudges?" Suggested Brok. "A lot of Klingons still blame us for standing in the way of their expansion."

"Han'tH's territory is located mainly along the Klingon-Romulan boarder," said McDonald – she had spent last evening studying everything Starfleet had on the general. "_We_ never got in the way of anything there."

"Could it be simple racism?" Threw out Fran. "They were born and bred to hate us."

"That's a possibility we can't discount," Drake said. "We've come a long way on that front, but changing people's opinions about other people takes a lot of time and effort."

"Does it matter?" Yawned Alix.

"Does what matter?"

"This," she said, waving a hand around. "All of this. Does it matter? Yes? No?"

"_Alix, you aren't making a lot of sense. Let me take over."_

"_I don't know…"_

"_They need a Nain, and right now I'm the only one who can think straight."_

"_Promise to behave?"_

"_If I must."_

"What I meant to say is does it really matter why this lunatic is attacking us? He is, that's the important fact. If we must have a reason: because he can. It's as good as any."

"You're more awake now?"

"The caffeine's having its effect, Will."

"Glad to hear it. I'd like to know why General Han'tH has declared this personal war on the Federation, but Alix is right in saying that we could spend all day discussing it and still not know."

"I didn't say that. Although it's accurate."

Drake ignored that. "Right now, our biggest concern has to be how to proceed once we reach Qo'noS."

"I'm all for shelling the planet back to the Stone Age, but I suppose that's not on the cards. Pity. It would be worth our while to learn the exact political situation on Qo'noS as quickly as possible: find out who still supports the alliance, and who supports Han'tH's war."

"And once we know our enemies?" McDonald asked.

"Kill them."

A few people shivered, and McDonald said, "I don't think that's the right approach, Wolf."

"It would work," said Kana Nain, who had been about to suggest it herself. "Not only would our foes be gone, but we would be able to manipulate who steps in to take their place. Klingons often advance in rank by killing the people further up the hierarchy. I'm sure the lesser minions would be grateful to us for elevating them into power. They'd certainly remember what happened to their forbearers."

"This meeting's getting a little darker than I'd intended," laughed Drake. But it was a forced laugh. "We're talking diplomacy here, people, not a coupe."

"Pity; they're so much more fun. Diplomacy is a very exact science; but to crush a government all you need is a big, desperate mob."

"_Twinkle, twinkle, little…"_

"_Go to sleep, Alix."_

"Speaking from experience?" There was something of a challenge in Drake's voice. He hadn't intended for it, but he recognized this darker Nain personality, he didn't like her, and he was not able to very well contain his feelings about her.

She smiled toothily. "Perhaps."

"Well, if I ever feel like deposing a leader I'll know who to go to. Getting back on track, I've never been a negotiator, and this mission has me worried. One slip, one bad word, and we risk plunging the quadrant into war. Big responsibility."

That caused a rumble of agreement from around the table. People started talking, but no one had anything to say. There was very little real intelligence available, and without that any strategy was just based upon guesswork.

"Enough!" Hissed Kana, her patience with this pointless session at an end. "When we reach Qo'noS we'll get the lay of the land and plan our move. Until we know more we can't do anything."

Wolf nodded. She understood virtually nothing of what her shipmates had been saying, and she wasn't convinced that they did, either. Nain's suggestion that they all shut up and wait to find out what was happening on Qo'noS struck her as a good one.

McDonald said, "While I wouldn't have phrased it quite like that, Admiral, I agree with what Lieutenant Nain has to say. Until we really know what's going on with the Klingons we can't make a realistic plan."

"If that's the consensus then meeting adjourned. Are you all right, Alix? Vicki said that you'd had difficulty sleeping."

"A nightmare," Kana replied with a shrug.

"Must have been pretty nasty to keep you awake."

"It was unpleasant: a bad memory."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Nah."

"If it's keeping you from sleeping…"

"I said no, Will! Is that so difficult to understand?" He reacted as though he had been slapped; so extreme and unexpected was Nain's outburst; so intense was the fury in her. Kana immediately realized that she'd erred, and she did her best imitation of one of her host's grins. "Sorry. I guess I'm a little snappish."

"You really didn't sleep much, did you?"

"About an hour."

Drake patted her on the shoulder; a gesture of support that he hoped she would appreciate. "Well, make sure you get some rest tonight, okay, Alix? Have Ilerson prescribe you something if you have to. I'm going to need you sharp tomorrow when we go down to the planet."

"Right, Will." She walked away, grinning from ear to ear. _And Alix says I can't act like her._ She would have enjoyed sharing the observation with her host, but the human's mind was fast sleep at that moment, resting and undisturbed by dreams.

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Qo'noS was not the planet that the Nains remembered it being; even from orbit the changes were apparent. When last they had been there it had been a very old, very cold world, the wind seeming to bite at one's flesh, as though it were as hungry for blood as the planet's inhabitants; it had snowed frequently, and every exposed inch of flesh had turned red and numb within moments of stepping outside. Nights had been colder still, the cloudless blue skies never managing to trap much heat.

That planet was not this one. Qo'noS now, since the decimation of Praxis, was a hot, perpetually overcast world. On final approach, the brilliant sapphire that Alix had expected to see was conspicuous by its absence; instead a dull, ash-coloured world rushed forward to meet them.

"That's Qo'noS?"

Wolf heard the disbelief in the helmsman's voice, and she ran a check on their position. "Yes."

"Time has not been good to it."

"Standard orbit," Drake requested, his own eyes fixed on the dirty, polluted, dying world on the main screen. He had never visited the planet himself, but he had heard of what it had been before the Praxis Incident: a far gentler world than anything one might have expected to give rise to a race like the Klingons.

Up close, the planet only looked worse: heavy grey storms churned throughout the atmosphere, and in the few places where the air was still it only made the thick layer of dust and debris from Praxis' explosion more visible. The surface was almost completely shrouded, but here and there patches of parched, desolate land could be seen through the cloud.

"_It's turned into Hell,"_ muttered Alix mentally.

Kana, who had been playing with her yo-yo in an attempt to relieve her mounting boredom, at last glanced up at the screen. She took in the desolate world at a glance, shrugged, and said: _"I've seen better."_ She returned to trying to perfect the 'walking the dog' trick, which she just could not seem to master.

"How can anyone survive down there?" Breathed Brok, appalled by what he saw.

"They're Klingons, Blue. They're tough."

"Tougher than me. I couldn't live on a planet like that."

"It's their home, Lieutenant," observed Drake from his command chair. "You'd be surprised what people are prepared to suffer to hold onto their homes." He thought briefly of the extents he'd gone to to hold onto _Endeavour_ – the closest thing to a home he could ever recall having.

A pair of birds of prey rose up from the surface and greeted the starship. Wolf tracked their leisurely ascent, and after a few minutes she was able to confirm that they were not flying on an attack vector. A little while later she was able to make out the house markings on their wings, and Admiral Drake greeted the two craft warmly.

"It is a pleasure to see you again," said the Klingon. "Congratulations on your recent promotion, Admiral. It was well deserved."

"Thank you," said Drake modestly.

"The High Council has been expecting you, Admiral," Commander Grownel informed them, looking more comfortable sprawled in his command chair than he ever had on the _Endeavour_. "A landing platform stands ready to receive your shuttlecraft."

"Shuttle?"

"Due to the ionisation of our upper atmosphere, direct beam transport would be…unwise."

"Acknowledged, Commander, and thank you for your consideration. I can have a shuttle ready to launch in…"

"Ten minutes," supplied Wolf.

Grownel accepted this time with a nod. "I shall signal the Council and advise them when to expect you. I will need to know the composition of your landing party. For security reasons."

"Of course. Landing party will consist of myself, Commander McDonald, Lieutenant Nain and Lieutenant Wolf."

"Not Wolf," said Alix quickly; in an Andorian dialect that Drake didn't understand at first. He frowned at her, wondering why she should sound so insistent that he leave his head of security on the ship, but he trusted his friend's judgement and amended, "My apologies, Commander Grownel, I meant to say Lieutenant Brok."

Grownel's eyes darted to Nain, wondering what it was that she had said to her admiral, but he had no time to think about such things. "Understood. Grownel out."

"Ready room, Alix. Okay, why did you tell me to leave Wolf behind?"

"I told you before: powder keg…spark…remember? We're likely to meet some unpleasantness down there, and you know what Wolf's like when someone insults her."

"Acts first, thinks later."

"Thinks not at all. We really don't need that, Will. Besides, with Brok and I you've got all the security you could possibly need; he's actually not a bad shot. Under no circumstances are you to tell him I said that."

"My lips are sealed," he grinned.

The predator was unperturbed at being removed from the landing party, and when the captain emerged from his ready room she informed him that a shuttle was waiting in the main bay: Friedman had always been conservative with his estimates. McDonald had already beamed across and was making her way to the shuttle; Lieutenant Brok was waiting patiently next to one of the turbolifts, and as soon as Drake and Alix joined him they were on their way, heading down into the bowels of the ship.

Starfleet shuttlecraft were, and had always been, rather unsightly vehicles: a wedge with a pair of engine pods tucked along the side, and some stubby wings as a token gesture towards aerodynamics. Alix had never liked the shape or handling characteristics of the shuttles, and this was an opinion that she shared with her counterparts throughout the fleet. The new models the _Endeavour_ carried were a little nicer than most – more streamline, and with higher performance engines – but she knew from an earlier test flight that they weren't a huge improvement.

"Strap yourselves in; it'll be a bumpy ride down. Sensors are showing a storm sweeping across the capital: high winds, rain, lightning, the whole lot. Why do you never take me anywhere nice, Skipper?"

"I take you to an exotic alien world and this is the thanks I get? Begin launch."

The shuttle fell away from _Endeavour_ and began the long, slow plunge into Qo'noS' atmosphere. As it streaked down, leaving a ribbon of smoke and fire to mark its passage, McDonald had to look away from the windows, her skin paling visibly. She had always hated re-entry, always hated the flames that accompanied it. No matter how many times her rational mind reminded her that the shuttle was protected by a force field, that even if that failed the hull was lined with a thermal coating that could withstand thousands of degrees centigrade, she remained convinced that the entire craft would be roasted to a crisp in the next heartbeat.

When the fiery nimbus finally disappeared from around the shuttle, their suicidal headlong rush towards the ground slowed, it was Alix who became fearful. The shuttle plunged into the storm over the capital city, and she felt her blood turn to ice. She had helmed _Endeavour_ through the ion storm without fear, had been through plasma storms and subspace ruptures, but she could not bare a terrestrial storm. _Hearing_ the wind screech by outside the hull…it terrified her. She had been born and had spent most of her life in space, where there were no sounds except the life support and the engines. Wind, rain, the roar of thunder…these were some of the most unnatural things that Alix could imagine.

In fact, there was very little about planets that she found in any way comfortable, natural, or appealing. She hated open sky; she was used to bulkheads, and the sight of uninterrupted blue stretching from horizon to horizon always made some part of her think that there had been a catastrophic hull breach, that at any moment she would be sucked out into the vacuum. Ground that undulated under foot…it wasn't natural; ground should be flat and hard, made of metal; green stuff should not be growing in it, and nor should great gushing corridors of water be found. Temperatures that fluctuated with the time of day…they should be constant, regulated by a computer.

She was a spacer, born and bred, and she could never be anything else. She had been to hundreds of different worlds during her life, had stood beneath stars unseen by any other human, on worlds of unimaginable beauty and ones indescribably vile, and while she could appreciate them, enjoy them, she would never be entirely comfortable on any of them. She preferred to be surrounded by metal than out in the wide-open spaces of nature.

The shuttle touched down with a thump, and while her crewmates were still releasing themselves from their straps, Alix was already sticking her head out through the shuttle's airlock. She detested planets but she was damned if she would let anyone know how she felt; even Kana didn't know the full extent of her host's dislike of soil and sky. She refused to let anyone see what she saw as her weakness, and took aggressive steps to conceal it: she would always be first out of the shuttle, first up onto the transporter.

"What's it like out there?"

"It's hard to say what's worse, Will: breathe through your nose and you gag on the smell; breathe through your mouth and you choke on the soot; take your pick."

"There are breather masks in the supply locker," said McDonald, already on her way to fetch them.

Alix popped her head back inside the shuttle, and she was wearing one of her ever-ready smiles. "Nah, they're not necessary. You get used to the smell and the taste. Besides, don't want to look weak in front of the Klingons."

The wind was howling around the landing platform, taking with it great clouds of dirt and dust that stung the eyes. Drake and McDonald found their eyes watering fiercely, and they could barely see. Brok and Nain were slightly better off, the Bolian because his species originated on an arctic world and his eyes were designed to tolerate assault by flying debris, and Alix because she had planned ahead and brought goggles.

"Good thinking, Lieutenant," said McDonald, squinting.

"I'm more than a pretty face, sir."

The commander intentionally made no reply to this comment. Rumours of Alix's activities on New Manchester had spread around the ship. McDonald wasn't usually one who put great stock in a starship's rumour mill, but in this case she was prepared to believe. Little things like the way Alix looked at people, the way she stood and the way she acted when around certain people – all of them female – seemed to support the rumours.

Four large Klingon men met them outside the Great Hall; all of them wearing the same highly decorated grey and red body armour, the same metal sashes with the same insignia on them. Guardians of the High Council, Brok explained in a whispered undertone, elite Klingon warriors who had sworn on their honour to defend the Chancellor and her Council to their last breath. There were no finer, stronger, more thoroughly trained warriors in the Empire.

"Quite a reception," muttered Drake, comparing his own party to the Klingons. He knew that he could fight, and Alix was complimentary of Brok's skills – a rare honour indeed. Nevertheless, and even with Alix backing them up, he did not feel comfortable. These Klingons were apparently here to escort and to protect him, but given everything that had happened lately he was still nervous.

"Jacket, Lieutenant," whispered McDonald as they approached a large set of double doors. The helmsman's breast flap had been hanging loose, but now she fastened it up so that she looked as neat and presentable as Alix Nain could.

The doors swung open majestically, and on the other side…was exactly what Drake had been told to expect. He was disappointed; Alix's description of the council chambers had been far, far too accurate. There was an immense hall, the stone walls shooting up for dozens of feet before disappearing into the darkness overhead; a few glowing panels provided a little light, but the majority came from candles and open fires; at the far end there was a throne, apparently carved out of a single slab of dark stone.

"Nice décor."

Chancellor Azetbur was sat in the position of power, and around her dozens of very large Klingons in very bulky armour, most of them male, stood arguing with one another. What little light there was gleamed strikingly off the blades these Klingon councillors openly wore.

Interestingly enough, Drake observed, the Chancellor herself appeared to be unarmed. He wondered what that said about her. Did she consider herself so safe, her position so secure that she didn't feel the need for a weapon? Had she so quickly forgotten her father's assassination? More likely she'd forgotten her knife, Drake decided, or else she kept hers better hidden than most.

Thoughts of hidden weapons brought his eyes to Alix. As a gesture of good faith, all of their phaser pistols had been left behind in the shuttle. He of course remembered Alix's advice that the party go armed to show that they weren't defenceless, but he had decided that the gesture of trust was worth making – that it might help make them appear more like friends. Drake himself was completely unarmed, and he could be sure that his first officer and tactical officer were carrying only the weapons that they had been born with, but Alix? She looked defenceless, but as with so many things about the girl, what she led people to believe and the actual truth could be two different things.

The wrangling between Klingon politicians continued for several long minutes, Drake and his team standing off to the side and waiting patiently to be acknowledged. Alix took the opportunity to send a cheeky grin his way. He remembered what else she'd told him about Qo'noS, about Klingon politicians arguing for days without getting anywhere. He could see that she hadn't been exaggerating.

Eventually Azetbur signalled for silence, and she got it immediately. She was a small woman, barely reaching the shoulders of the Klingon senators and far less muscular; physically she was so much weaker than they were; but she had another power, one that transcended the physical; an aura of immense strength and authority surrounded her, and it affected everyone in the room.

With perhaps just one exception. Alix smirked, glanced at her awe-struck shipmates, and chuckled. They thought that was impressive?

Azetbur turned her dark eyes towards the Starfleet officers, immensely stern, and greeted: "Rear-Admiral Drake."

He bowed. "Chancellor. Thank you for agreeing to see us as such short notice."

"I understand the importance of the situation, Admiral. The Federation Council has explained it to me in great detail."

"The Federation Council," said another Klingon coldly, cynically, "has invented a great fiction that we are expected to believe!"

"To what are you referring, sir?"

"The alleged attack on the Herminie colony planet! Your council has laid the blame on us!"

"The planet was attacked by Klingons."

"Lies," hissed the councillor. "We are allies. Why would we attack our friends?"

"The evidence is conclusive."

"Klingons do not kill helpless colonists! It is without honour!"

"The same cannot be said for you," said another Klingon, a tall male, broad-shouldered, his dark hair done up into a neat plaits. "I know something of your record, Admiral. Your recent promotion was reward for your capture of a Klingon battleship! Is this the action of an ally?"

Drake defended: "That ship was operating illegally in Federation space. It had also engaged in battle with a Starfleet squadron. It was a legal capture. Your own government recognized it as such."

"That vote was not unanimous. And now we can all see that those who voted against it were right to do so! You come to us today dragging behind you the battered hulk of another of our ships!"

"A ship that intercepted and attacked me en route to Qo'noS." Stated Drake firmly.

"Convenient, Admiral."

"Councillor Han'tH," Azetbur said, her voice cool, level, and quiet, "you will be silent."

The large man looked at his leader, anger visibly smouldering inside of him; but he knew better than to act on his irritation, and he clamped his lips shut. Drake watched all of this carefully, committing every detail of the Klingon to memory, from the scar across his right cheek to the stiffness in his right leg. He now had a face; Han'tH was no longer just a name; now there was a man to pin the evil onto.

He wasn't aware of it, but he wasn't the only one scrutinizing Han'tH. Stood invisibly at his side, Kana Nain's illuminated eyes performed the same inspection as Drake's, and although she was looking in the same spectrum as the admiral, using none of her advanced senses, she saw more than he did. A shiver of pain that passed through Han'tH, unnoticed by Drake, caught Kana's attention, as did the slight mottling of his skin – although carefully disguised – and the looseness of his flesh. He looked old; Kana would bet that he wasn't.

Azetbur held the general in her gaze for a moment longed, until she was convinced that he would not interrupt her. "Admiral Drake, I will hear your explanation for how one of our ships came to be in your possession."

"We were six days from Qo'noS, when we were approached by the strike cruiser _Kra't'nal_. A signal from the _Kra't'nal_ told us that the ship was an escort, dispatched by the High Council, however certain oddities in its approach vector, together with inconsistencies in our scans, led me to believe that she was lying. When I requested the private signal, the _Kra't'nal_ failed to respond. Because of our prior encounter with a rogue Klingon battleship, I had _Endeavour_'s shields raised and weapons armed. I called for the _Kra't'nal_'s surrender; she attacked."

"_Kra't'nal_ is a state of the art cruiser! She could not be defeated by your antique starship!"

"Han'tH. You will be silent. Continue, Admiral."

"Our attack neutralized the cruiser's weapons and engines. We boarded and captured her, taking several prisoners."

"Lies. Klingons fight to the death!"

"I ordered basic repairs to be carried out on the cruiser, so that she could be brought to Qo'noS and returned to her builders. Her crew are held in her cargo bays, her officers are on my ship. You may be interested in what her captain has to say. We also have one of the Klingons who assaulted Herminie on our vessel."

"Bring them before us, Admiral."

"As you wish, Madam Chancellor."

Shuttling the prisoners to the surface took some time, far longer than beaming them would have. Drake was not prepared to risk scrambling the molecules of his only witnesses by transporting them through Qo'noS' polluted atmosphere, and the High Council was obliged to wait. General Han'tH became more and more vocally aggressive as the time went on, crying that Drake had no evidence, no people to present, that he was stalling, wasting the Council's time. Towards the end, Azetbur was obliged to raise her voice to silence him: a frightening occurrence.

"Nice voice," Alix whispered, a note of pleasure in hers.

"Behave yourself." The last thing he needed was his friend making a move on the Klingon chancellor.

Alix made a _pfft_ sound with her lips and stuck her hands into her pockets, looking petulant. Drake was made to think of a child told 'no' by a parent, and he felt like laughing.

After some time the chamber's doors flew open and Drake's two prisoners were marched in – Captain Narrgoth, and the Klingon soldier Alix had captured on Herminie. They entered proudly, their heads held high, although their arms and legs were chained, and they wore those expressions of defiant silence that Drake had become all too familiar with.

Alix just had to look at the soldier for him to crack. "Keep her away! Keep her away from me! I told you what you wanted to know! I told you everything I know!" Frantically, his bulging eyes zipped around the collection of unfamiliar Klingon faces, until they came to rest on one that he did know. He ran across as fast as his bound legs would carry him and threw himself at Han'tH's feet, clawing at the man's robes. "Please, sir! Protect me from her! I did what you asked."

"Release me!" Barked Han'tH, kicking the soldier away.

General Kravft grabbed the soldier by his shoulders and hurled him up. "Stand, you snivelling _pahtk_! I recognize this worthless creature," he announced to the council. "He is the Klingon we captured on Herminie."

"And we are to accept your say-so on that?"

Kravft threw the soldier aside and advanced on Han'tH. "You would dare to speak to me in that manner! After what you have done? I stood on Herminie; I saw the destruction you orchestrated. I should cut you open now and save us all the time!" His hand went for his knife.

"_He won't be able to_. _Pity. Would be an interesting spectacle."_

"General!" Barked Azetbur, before he could draw. "There will be no death today."

"As you wish, Madam Chancellor." He did not sound pleased.

"_Why interesting, Kana? You've seen stabbings before."_

"_Yes, but…"_

"_But?"_

"_Nothing."_

There was something that the Destroyer wasn't telling her, and Alix eyed her insubstantial friend with intense suspicion. What did Kana know that she didn't? That was a well without a bottom, she realized, and perhaps it was the wrong question to be asking: what had Kana _seen_ that she hadn't? Something about Han'tH; something that had explained a lot of things for her. What was it?

The Klingon soldier was sobbing openly in the middle of the council chambers, watched by all. The Klingons were staring at him with disgust (for who had ever heard of a Klingon weeping?) but also with curiosity and confusion – for what could have been done to him to turn him into this emotional wreck? If he had been capable of shedding tears his face would have been soaked by now.

Han'tH advanced on him. "Pathetic worm! You are a disgrace." His boot lashed out, but the kick never landed. The Klingon soldier suddenly received a surge of strength, and of confidence. He caught the flying foot, pulled himself to his full height, and challenged: "You do it! You look into her eyes; see the things she shows you. Terrible things! Worse than Gre-Thor! _Worse!_"

"_May I?"_

"_Enjoy yourself."_

The Change, and Kana's low, purring laughter drifting into the air like smoke. It got attention, and Klingon heads turned on her sharply. Kana didn't see any of this, as her eyes were downcast, but she sensed it, and her purr became louder, more pleased. This was going to be delicious.

"You?" Han'tH strode towards her. "You did this?"

"Oh yes." Laughter.

"Who are you?"

"She is Lieutenant Nain."

Han'tH was at point blank range; Kana's head snapped up, her eyes locking onto his and burning with the fires of Hell – of Gre-Thor. "I'm the Destroyer."

The general leapt back, his heart thundering in his ears and his entire body shaking. Another pain spasm gripped him, more clearly visible this time as he was in no fit state to suppress it. Kana's expression, never pleasant, turned positively demonic. Her voice was a low whisper, barely audible to her intended audience, and completely inaudible to everyone else. "I'd be careful, General. A man in your condition…you could fall down dead without any warning at all."

Mocking laughter roared into the air, General Kravft's head tipped back and glowing with glee; he was soon joined in his cheer by his supporters and allies, and Han'tH found himself an object of ridicule. He cast one last hate filled, suspicious, glance at the Destroyer, who simply smiled back; he spun away from her and stormed off.

"_What was that about a man in his condition?"_

"_Figure it out, Alix. I'm not here to give you the answers."_

Feeling a little spiteful, Alix snatched back control of her body. It was a well-timed manoeuvre, as Azetbur was examining her, and an instant later the Chancellor spoke: "You are the infamous Destroyer?"

Alix bowed. "I am, Ma'am."

Azetbur considered her for a moment longer; Alix could feel the gaze moving across her; those were really some eyes! "I had expected someone larger."

"It's not the size, Madam Chancellor, it's the way you use it."

For the first time, emotion appeared on the Chancellor's haughty face, her lips tucking up slightly at the corners. It was as much of a smile as she would permit herself to display, but she wanted to show a lot more. She liked this confident, dangerous young human; she had a powerful spirit, and Azetbur could respect that. She could also respect – no, admire – what the Destroyer had done to that snivelling soldier.

Drake talked at some length about the prisoners; where they had been found, what they had told him. Han'tH objected vocally to his name being mentioned – unfounded accusations – an attack on his honour – but Azetbur silenced him. She listened very carefully to everything that the admiral had to say, comparing it to what the Federation Council had already told her in their private communications. The stories were basically the same – some slight difference in the details. Azetbur decided to attach more weight to what Drake said to her. He was a warrior who had accomplished great deeds in the battlefield of the stars, as she knew well. He was also, she could tell, quite a simple individual, one with strong beliefs and strong values. It was not in his power to invent elegant fiction or shadowy strategies; in fact, she imagined that such things would entirely baffle him. He was forthright, honest to his core.

"Remove those two from the chambers," Azetbur said, indicating the prisoners. "They shall be questioned."

"If they prove uncooperative…" Offered Alix.

"You Federation people squirm at torture," hissed Han'tH. It was a badly judged insult. Alix merely smiled and said: "Torture is for amateurs. Why harm the body when you can get directly at the soul?"

"No one can injure a soul."

"Oh, I can."

The threat hung in the air, terrifying to every Klingon present. They were a spiritual people, although many might believe otherwise; they believed in the soul, in honour in this life determining where you spent the next, and Alix's suggestion that she could somehow attack their souls, damage that part of them that was immortal, struck fear into every Klingon present.

_She is powerful_, Azetbur reflected. _Dangerous, too. Drake is fortunate to have her allegiance._

The Chancellor rose. "This meeting is adjourned. We will learn what we can from the prisoners, Admiral, and reconvene when our questions have been answered."

As the Starfleet officers filed out, General Kravft watched them go. He had sworn vengeance against the Destroyer not so long ago, and here she was now, wandering about the home world: vulnerable.

The Fates could be too kind on occasion.


End file.
